LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2505, 26 March 1902, Page 69

LITERARY NOTES.

— Mi- Norman Hapgoocl, whose bnlliant btudy of Abraham Lincoln will be remembered, produces with the Macmillan Company a pendant to it in his biographical memoir of George Washington, , making a \olume of convenient size, with a few good portraits and other illustrations. Mr Hapgood is pmong the most notable of the younger American writer*. — Thcie was a rumour snnic months ago, .<-ays W. P. James, in the St. James 1 * Gazette, that the "Jungle Books" were to be dramatised Happily, us I think, that transformation has not yet boen accomplished. The rumour now is that "Kirn" is to be put upon the s-rage ; and that, too. is an experiment thai the tiuc-t admirer of tho book would, I beliove, watch with misgning. —In the year 1893 Profc c &or L-ova«our, ol the College ol France, was entrunted with an ccinomio inquiry into the condition of the labouiing classes in America. There resulted fiom it a large book, which has just been translated into English by tho authorities of the Johns Hopkins University, America. An English edition of this translation will be published within tho next few days. — Sii William Preece ] ias undertaken to wnte a -volume for Mr Murray 1 !- Home and •School Library It will be an account of the te'.ograph and the telephone, subjects on which Sir William is one of our greatest authorities The last \oluine will treat minutely n f all the latest dc\ elopments in reference to these methods of communication. Already Sir Williajn Preece has written largely of them, and he is the joint author, with Sir James Suewiight, of a text-book to telegraphy. • — Mae:rillan and Co. announce foi- immediate publication several volumes by wellknown diMiies. These include Archbishop Benson's ''Addresses on the Acts." a \ohimo of Bi--hop Wcstcott entitled "Faith and Hope.' two volumes by Bishop Welldon, and a hook on tho "Acts" by Dr Chase, the president of Queen's College, Cambridge. The Ro\ . A. Foster-Melliar has prepared a new edition of his "Book of the Rose," w hic-h Macmillan and Co. will publish at once. A \olume on "Old-time Gardens," by Miss Alice M. Earle, i= aUo proniitec' by the same film. — Sir .Spencer Walpole promises m a book ha\iiiK the title, "Some Unpublished Letter; of Horace Walpole." A volume/ with such contents will necessarily be interesting;, and Me-«rs Longman are to ha\e it ready soon. Since Sir Spencer Walpole retired from the Heeretary»lnp of the Post Office he has had more time to give to literary woik. He has a considerable record of books to his name, among them a hiitory of England and a life of his kinsman, tl.o Rifc-ht Hon. Hpencei Perceval, He ha< al-o unttcn a biogiaphy of Lord John Ru'.-el!. —Mr G. W. Smalley, who was for years in London, -eeins to be willing hU longpromis.'cl au'obiogiaphy on the instalment ;-y~t< in. He has a heady printed, in the AnxMuai magazines, \armus articles which will lie gathered into it, and dining the present ye;u ho is to contribute a --erieh to Marlurc't Magazine. They will pa«s in review such English figures a* Oueen Victoria, Lord Salisbury, Lord Rixseb-M-j, Mr Aithur Balfour, and Sir Henry Ir\ing. Mr .Smalley al-r camp sufficiently into contact with B'smarc-k and Gambetta to be able to '• tell us something ne,v about thorn. ! — Many readers and most writer' must sometimes !ia\e asked themselves on what terms thp Queen of Roumama s,upphcb the aitich-s and tales "-hp ia s-o ofteu invited to ( cnti lbtite to \arious periodicals in Germany. Kn^lund. and tlie United States. She in all ca-t'n expect-, adequate remuneration, ] and the more highly she is paid the better she 1-- pN-ased. The Royal lady is haid to have been delighted by the exceptionally large Rim >-he received from a Chicago publisher for l«er \olume of fairy tales. Her cx'f-Hri't bii-inr-ss anangements have, moroo\ei, the (ffect of benefiting the poor of Hu(haii"=t, fur till her Majesty gains by her pen c he distributes m charity — Academy. — Hie biographical and cntical sketch of Kinglake, which the Rev. W. Tiu-kmell has written and Messr* Bell arc to publish very shortly, should find a hearty welcome from all who ha\e been fascinated by that gem of tra\pl literature, "Eotlien." It may be, <-ay-, the Westminster Gazette, possible to dislike, or at all events to feel no enthu-.-iasm foi, -the great work to which Kinglake de\oted the major portion of Ins life — the "History of the Crimean War" — but any such feeling is impossible in regard to "Eothen," for which a very long life may. with all safety, be predicted. Mr Tuekwell wrote an introduction to an edition of this classic work, issued by the &ame publishers —Messrs Bell — a few years ago. —In the hpecial Dickens number just issued, Literature quotes some of the prices which hay© been realised for Dickens relics. A copy of the "Journal of Our Life in the Highlands," presented to the novelist >y Queen Victoria, who inscribed his name in it, fetched 30gs in 1§93, and in NV>\ ember 1599 was sold for lOOgs. It is now in the possession of Mr Henry Dickens, K.C. A petty cash book kept by Dickons, in the office of Mi K. Bla( kmore. a lawyer, of Linooitt'* Inn FxcldL — Jt*--t entry. January 5,

1828—Las realised £95 at auction. At this time Dickens was in receipt of a salary of 13s 6d a week. A despatch-box, alluded to by Forstcr in his "Life," has brought £48, and a sundial, which stood at Gadshili, on a stone column made from one of the balustrades of old Rochester Bridge, was sold c or the same sum. — Fitzgerald's .etters are beyond cavil among the best of their kind. They arf real letters, written by the most modest of men, with no reputation in his own day and without any suspicion of posthumous honours (what he would have said of the present cult of Omar Khayyam one may judge from his references to the Browning Society); they are also candid letters, expressing tho actual opinions he had formed on matters of literature and art, without any deference to those, in voguo among the Cockneys of the day, as he was apt to call | the London critics; above all, thoy are tho : Mters of a master of style as he himself defines it—"the saying in tho most perspicuous and succinct way what ono thoroughly understands, and saying it so naturally that no effort is apparent."—Spectator. j —In Amenca the big circulation and the now author are now engaging the parodists. The "Book Booster" purports to be published by Josh, Gosh, and Co., of Evanstor, 111. One of the books booatpd is "Faggots of Empire," by Miss Bertha Bosh. Mus Bosh, we are told from the "Editor's Rocking Chair," "is only 15 years old, but is eitremely bright for her ago. She is a j Chicago girl, and has never travelled farther than Oconomowoe, which makes her literary foat all the more remarkable. For ' Faggots of Empire ' in a story of the reign of Charlemange, and the author betrays a singular acquaintance with the local colour of those times." We are al«o told that "the cloth used in binding the first edition would, if stretched end to «»nd. -'*aeh from Chicago* to Evanston. Placed side by side, the pages would reach from Chicago to Minneapolis. Smeared thinly, the ink used would cover four townships." — Following up the idea which wa« productive of co signal a success in the publication of his "Pseudonym Library." Mr FiHier Unwin is about to launch a new aeries upon th.c world, to be called "The First Novel Library " The publisher will require a book to reach a certain level of excellence to be included in this tei-i^s: thus, tho author whose initial venture finds a pk'cc in it starts on his, farcer with the publisher's pledge to the public that he lias sterling worth. It ia confidently anticipated that the success of this series will be ai remarkable as that which attended its forerunneis, which produced «=nch wntf-rs a* John Oliver Hobbe*, Mnry Findhtor, Mrs Andrew Demi, Louis Becke. Joseph Conrad, S. R. Crorkett. Benjamin Swift. Mis* Hawker, W. B. Yeats. Julia M. Crottie. and Vernon Lee The initial volumr of the new lihraiy, entitled "Wiston's: a Story in Thrpe Parts." by Miles Amber, has just been miblishc-d by Mr Fisher L'nwin in his Colonial Library. THE SIX BOOKS OF 1801. If \\p take up such ? convenient (liroiiological lecord a-, is impended to Professor Ilale's "Handbook* of Ivngh-h Literature," we find sj\- book> entewd a^ (lie most noteworthy publication'- in 1801. T'ic-e ai-n Cobhott'- "Works of Peter Porcupine." Lewis's "Tal"s of Wonder," Lamb's "John Woothil." ScottV "Ballad«." Southey's "Tlialaba." and Moore's "Little Poeinv" A sporting reader might make a mo-de-rate bet tl'at only one of the six had ever met the eye of any average tablo companion without great n>k. Southcy, as Porson unkindly uroplif-itd. will be lead — when Homor and Virgil are forgotten. Monk Lewis and the amorous Little are remembered chiefly because Byron loipcl them. Peter Porcupine is as dead as a hedgehog, and in 1801 no one foresaw tlie promise of "Elia" or "Rob Roy" in the productions of the young Edinburgh advocate or the demure but poetically-minded clerk at the India Hoii^p. Perhaps wp, too, are unconFiiou-, of ttie one book to which the historian of twentieth century literature will direct the greatest pait of the attention that he has to spare for 1901.—Daily News.