LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2467, 26 June 1901, Page 76

LITERARY NOTES.

— The American publishers of Miss Mary I Johnston's works announce that her novel "To Have and to Hold " has reached a sale of 2F5.000 copies, and "Prisoners ol Hope" 82,000. —Ii is rumoured that a large box of "Love Letters" by Charles Dickens has been discovered, and, when arranged and .edited, will be given to the world. —Mr J. M. Barrie is said to be writing a new costume comedy, while another mordant etud^r of society is promised by Mr Henry Arthur Jones, and a new dramatic version of certain incidents in the career of Miss Becky Sharp. - - ■ — George Egerton's new book, " Rosa Amorosa: the Love Letters of a Woman, was published on May 7 by Mr Grant Rich- ' ards. Arrangements for the publication of this book were concluded early in 1900, long before "An Englishwoman's -Love Letters" Here even heard of. j —Messrs Eyie and Spotthwoode are pub- ' lishing an edition, limited to 5000 copies, of "A Memorial Issue of the Book of Common Prayer," bound with "Hymns A. and ! M." lit addition to the Victorian edition I ! of the Book of Common Prayer the book contains a fine portrait of her late Majesty in Woodburygravure, a coloured title-page, I the memorial service as used on February 2, 1801, etc. ' — A new and revised edition of "Poems," ! by W. B. Yeats, will be published by Mr | Fisher Unwin immed.ately. The volume has \ been considerably added to by the author, j who has supplied a critical preface and a now love scene for "The Countess Oath-, leen," as well as now passages elsewhere, | making it, as Mr Yeats considers, a much stronger play than before. Other additions have been made here and there in the book and several revisions. —Dr Conan Doyle's very successful story of "The Great Boer War," of which upwards of 50,000 copies have been sold m book form, is being published serially vi [ "The Wide World Magazine," by arrangements with the .publishers, Messrs Smith, Elder and Co., and the author. It com- | menced in the May number. It w ill be il- ; lustrated with maps, photographs, and ]:> or- | traits, and will present qaite a complete | and intelligible picture of the whole Boer question. —Mr Fisher Unwin Mill publi&h a new novel by Mr Allen M'Aulay, the author of " The Rhymer." The title is "Black Mary," , and the story may be described as an efi fort on the writer's part to embody in fic-

tional form the traditions, the homely taying*, the siUiOiindmgs, and mode of life of an old-time family in o'd time ficotlrnd. Much of the «übstaiice of it ba.o benn clrav. n from aural tradition and fiom old fifinly papers. — General Sir H. E. f'olvile is engapod upon a book, dosciib.ng " r J i'c Woik of ths Ninth Division." which will be published by I\lr Edward Arnold. General Cohlle includes a brief at.Vant of the opcrat'.cni inider Loid Mcthuon fin the iolief oi Kimberlcy, in v.hieh he was entrance! prior to the formation of the Ninth Dmsiou, while subsequent chapters dja.l with t^r captuio of Cionje at Paardeberg, Smiia' 1 - Post, tho Lindley affair, a>ul nui'ierous engagement! in which the di\ !3ion took part. — Uiider the title of "Mar/d in Makmtj," sugsiMe^ by tlic lines lrom Omar Khayyam's " Rubaiyat ": — . . . Some tn pro are who tell Of one who tincateus he will toss to Hell Ihc luckless pcta he marr'd in making, a work by a write i who. the publishers state, i* a Counter, and the wifo of a CLambcilaia of a Euvopcan Court, will bo published by Con. cable and Co. The scene l- laid in Italy, Austria, and America. The dramatic rights hai c been applied for. — Mrs Dundeney (says O. 0. in the Sketch) is a novelist who ha^s arrived. She has done better work than her new book, " The Third Floor" ("Folly Corner" was a more artistically wrought book with .a higher level of quiet excellence), but none more attractive, none showing so strongly the elements of permanent popularity. " The Third Floor" i& too outrageously melodramatic in plot, >and the -stoTy ends in an unsatisfactory cul-,de-sac, but, in spite of manifest weaknesses. it is one of the biighte-l, wittiest, and moat entertaining novels published this year. —Mr Fisher "Unv. in has in preparation a volume of essays, by distinguished graduates of Cambridge University, concerning pro blems of modern city life in England. The essays, to tlie number of nine (including '- la& on " Invpenarism "), are each trested by an expert. The authors, including Messrs Charles Fl G. Masterman, F. W. Lawrence, F. W. Head, and G. M. Trevelyan, who are all Fellows of Cambridge colleges, have made a special study cf these problems, even to the extent of going to live among the maise?. To show the special interest of the work at the present time, it is only necessary to state that among the essays presented are to be found some dealing with the housing problem, temperance reform, the distribution of industry, and the Churcli and the people. — Messrs George Bell and Sons announce that they will publish shortly a colonial edition of "The Siege of Kumassi," by Lady Hodgson (wife of Sir Frederic Hodgson, late Governor of the Gold Coast). It will be profusely illustrated. The book has been very well i-eceived in England. The samG publishers also announce a colonial edition of a new work by Louise Jordan Bliia (author of ""When We Were Strolling Players in the East.") It will be entitled " Weddings and Wooings m Many Climes'" and will be published shortly. 'It -will be ilhistrated. —Mr Fisher Unwin is publishing in his Colonial Library "The Maid of Maiden Lane," another of "Mrs .Amelia E. Barv's charming romances of old New York. The main theme is -the love story of an Englishman for an American girl, a love which ran awry for a long time, but came to a happy ending.