LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2455, 3 April 1901, Page 67

LITERARY NOTES.

— One of the grcite=t- literary prizes ye founded is =or.n to be competed for in pvv bu^nce of ;< direction in the will of the Jaf Dr Nobpl. on* of the inventors of dynamic The prize, v. hich is £8000, will be adjudgei by the Swedish Academy to the author of tin literary work which it phall consider the rr.os noteworthy from the idealist point of view. • — Archibald Constable and Co. are abou to publish a military novel, by Captaii Cairnes, en'itled " The Coming Waterloo.' The woik consists of an exposition of the usi of modern arms and appliances in warfare Captain Cairnes, who has made the fubjec his life's study, has clearly represented the ac tual conditions of modern warfare. A slcetcl map of the ecene of operations will be in eluded in the volume. — A book dealing with "Roman CathoK ciain as a Factor in European Politics," by Mi Frederick C. Conybearc, is about to be pub lished by Messrs Skelh'ngton. The same pub lishers alsa announce, under the general title of "Thoughts, Memories, and Meditations, 1 ' a tianslation from the French of extracts from the diary of Madame Hofkicr, who per ished in the fire at the Bazar de la Charite in Paris in May, 1397. — " The New Arabian Nights " was the first book of stories which the late Robert Louis Stcvenecu issued. Thi3 was i:i 1882, and Chatto and Windus published it m the old two-volume form. The first edition was limited to 500 cop;e3, and it is a book which now fetches a high price from collectors. Various editions for those who buy Stevenson to read have been published since a*- tarious prices. Chatto and Windus now announce a new edition at 6d. ■ — Jarrold and Sons have purchased the rights in Dr Maurus Jokai's popular no\el, entitled " Eyes Like the Sea," which won the Pungarian Academy's prize a? the best noiel of the day. This ptory is considered the most brilliant of Jokai's later worl.r-, and perhaps the most humorous of all his woiks. It i.s also very largely autobiographical. The woi 1 !: will j be published shortly, with a portrait of the author, in the uniform scries of hi& noxcl^. ! — The Biotheis Dal/iiel are preparing a iccord of their 50 year a ' work in connection with many of the mo-t distinguished a^ti -r=s of the period fioin 1840 till 1890. There will b^ selected examples of the work of the bc=t painters whoso drawings came to then for icproduction, and autograph letters (;oiko m fac-simile) from Lord Leighton. St .John E\erott Millais. Mr Dante G. Ro«petii, S.r Edward Buine-Jonc*, Mr Madox Brown, Mr Rus'-un, find many othcis. —Mr Thomas Wright, the fullest biographer of the poet Cowper, has made oxhauhtive researches concerning the novelist, and a Life of Chailes Dickens froia Mr Wright's pen will appear bcfoie this yc?r is ended. When he got the "Life of Defoe ' out of his hands in 13%, Mr Wright be?an his Dickens biogiaphy, in the prosecution of which he has visited nearly every locality associated with the novelist, and interviewed persons who were intimate with him. —In Frarce death has taken two wellknown, littciateurs of very opposite kiud c — Jules Barbier, librettist of Gounod's '"FaiHt" and "Romeo," and other well known operas, and the Due de Broglio, an industrious nnd prolific writer on hisloricil subjects fiom the time that he abandoned, or wv.s abandoned by, the acme political life. The Duke's death renders vacant the scat in the French Academy, to which he was elected nearly 40 years ago. — " Hpnley and Burn", or the Cutlc Censured," by Mr J. D. Ross, contains a &L"t callpd "The Penurious Cockney,* in which Mr Henley is represented as saying: — Weel up in Scotch, I c et mysel' to wark To ship the Poet to his \eiy saik, An' gie the waild a pictur' o' the Man An' a' his Doin's — on the eut-thioat plan. Some " half-read " gowks ayont the Tweed ni'cht sneer, An' name mysel' in words no' fit to hear , I only leuch. The man himsel' was deid — Ho couldna reach me, sac I didna heed. — The estimate of Byron by " Matk Rutherford " in his latest book is interesting. "Byron secured, 1 ' he says in his essay on "The Corsair," " access to thousands of readers in England and the Continent by strength and loveliness, a feat seldom equalled, and perhaps never surpassed. The present writer's father, a compositor in a dingy printing office, repeated verses from ' Childe Harold ' at the case. Still more remarkable, Byron reached one of this writer's friends, an officer in the navy, of the ancient stamp ; and the attraction, both to printer and lieutenant, lay in nothing lower than that which was best in him." I Chalto and Windus have in preparation cheaper editions of four of Miss Gordon-Cum-ining's books of travel. They will shortly issu-> "In the Himalayas and on the Indian Plains" and "The Hebrides." The author is not the only member of her family who has a ' taste for nd\entme, for she i.s the sifter of " the Lion Huntci of South Africa," Roua- , leyn Gordon-dimming, and they are do- j tended on the mother's side from the celebrated Elizabeth G'lnning", Duchess of Argyll. ' The same firm will also publish a. new novel

of French domestic hfo by Mr Ernest X Vi ZC - M]y. "A I'aih cf Thorns 1 ' Mr Wtelly >« the translator of Zola's «or! l 8 and th.; .mthcr of With Zola in En^L-rd " -Tho late Mr I<\ W. H. MjorV/a man of \aiiod lparninrf and poetiwl gemns, was cho"_n by Mr Moi.ov to wiile tho volume on WorclswcrJ, m "English Men of letters." fe'ro 0 ' l S T his contri b«tion to psjchical lescaich, he loaves a poem on Ht. Paul, and another en the " Dhtiess m Lanca^,re " which , la-t f ,nec l h.m the Chancello™ Pr^e at Cambridge Ho m, hke Matthew Aichool V Gr - mspcctois of IRR? i cntical c-ajw, published m 1885 and now included in ,he E.ersley .eric* are divided mto "Modern " and " Cla-ic" » and contain thing,, notably th- cs=ay on XnBil, that uesoi-ve to be more read and better known than they appear to be. — . ir Edward Malet's foithcoming volume of Rcmiiiucences will certainly (f ay , tht Ske c.i) be the most intc.e,ting book o f its of more than 40 years cohered an extrS, he L.iii.h iiniba^y ni P ar ; s during th* Commu, lP Jo wds Mmister-Plempotcntkry Tt Constantinople at the conclusion of the Rus — Mr John Murray has already issued three or four books on musical subjects, and he v fit Waplues of our S reat admirals ad certain ing to 70C ) pageb, will be ready shortly. — -Mr Mortimer Menre-t'* " Wo- 't n°de ",V' l \ ai i editlo!l de iuxe on"l-and