LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2528, 27 August 1902, Page 60

LITERARY NOTES.

— Miss Marie Corolli cannot boast the largest circulation among women writers after all. That is claimed for Mrs Henry Wood. Of "East Lynne," 660,000 copies have been sold, and of seven others of her novels upwards of a million have been "sold.

— Voynich, the well-known London dealer in early printed books, is a Pole of noble family, who was banished to Siberia by the Russian Government, and, after much tribulation, escaped to England, where he started as a books&ller with about. £5. He lias now a large business in med:ceval books. His wife is the author of "The Gadfly " and ""Jack Raymond."

— Another new book with President Roosevelt as joint author is now being published by Messrs Macmillan. It is the first volume of a now "American Sportsman's Library," started by the Macmillan Company, of New York, under the general editorship of Mr Caspar Whitney, the editor of Outing, and for many years editor of Harper's Weekly. The present volume is devoted to "The Deer Family." and President Roosevelt, in the chief section of the work, deals with the deer and antelope of North America.

— There has been rather a keen competition for the right to publish the new letters by Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh Carlyle. The matter is now settled, and during the autumn (says the Daily Chronicle) we may look for two volumes of the correspondence. They will consist of letters written by Mrs Carlyle to friends, and eventually they will be followed by two others, containing letters which Carlyle wrote, also to various friends. It will be seen, therefore, that the correspondence is general, as the subjects arising in it are many.

— Amoi jf the papers left by Bishop Phillips Brooke, who-se biography appeared not very long ago, there were a number of sermons. A selection of these has been made for a volume which Messrs Macmillan are to publish under the title "The Law of Growth, and Other Sermons," At one time Phillips Brooks was a frequent visitor to England, and he was a welcome preacher in Westminster Abbey. This ciroumstanoe probably helped the circulation which his various volumes of sermons have had among English readers, but in any case It has been large.

— It is 'stated (says the Sketch) that in the new edition of "Tho Silver Domino," which Messrs Lamley and Co. are to issue immediately^ the author's identity is to be half revealed. At anyrate, it will be proved clearly enough that the old notion that " The Silver Domino " was, the product of a certain very popular lady novelist v incorrect. Over 30 editions of '"The Silver Domino " have been issued, and the new and revised edition will contain much added matter in tho form of comments on events that have occurred since the appearance of the last issue.

- Messrs Macmillan announce another volume of Oxford essays on philosophy, called "Personal Idealism," and edited by Mr H. Rturt, of Queen's College, who contributes a chapter on "Art and Personality." Among the subjects to be treated by different writers are "Error" (by Mr G F. Stout), "Personality: Human and Divine" (by Mr Hastings Rafa'adall), "Tho Future of Ethics," "The Limits of Evolution," "Psychology and the Problem of Freedom," etc. The purpose of the book is to assert an idealism which takes account of empirical phenomena as against Naturalism on the one hand and Absolutism on the other.

— It is a fact to note that, despite the respectable claims of countless modern writers of fiction, the most popular novelists are those who may be termed ancients, and romanticists at that. Where tl>p popular author of to-day sells his thousands, Scott, Dickens, and Dumas still sell their tens of thousands. Superior pcrFons have marvelled, and still marvel, at the popularity of Diokens, but the popularity of the three most popular writers of tho niiiftepnth century is maintained in the twentieth. As to this matter of popularity, genuine popularity — widespread acquaintance, that is, among those whom we may call the people — a good doal of misconception prevails. Thackeray, for instance, and Lord Lytton (better known as Bulwar Lytton), and Geo. Eliot were never truly popular, and regarding the- last, it is a fact, recently declared by her publishers, Messrs Blaekwood, that "bho only began to pay" when she was dea/J.

— Mr Rudyard Kipling is eaid to have a caustic tongiif a3 well as pen, and the Week-End puts on record a snub- which he administered not so long age to one of the younger of the London dailies. The editor had arranged with the poet for a series of war sketohes, and in due time proofs were eont to the author. Now, one of the editorial standing orders of the paper in question is, "Paragraph all matter freely," which, translated freely, means, make as many paragraphs as possible, even if sense or appropriateness has to be disregarded. In accordance with this instruction, the fair (symmetry of Kipling's paragraphs was 60 ruthlessly "broken up" as to draw from him, when returning the proof slips, this caustic comment: — "I congratulate you on the paragraphing of these slips. It is worthy of a nuraegirl's novelette. — R. K." We (Fieid) can recommend nothing better, when so many people are thinking of the venerable abbey, than Mrs A. Murray Smith's "The Roll Call of Westminster Abbey" (Smith, Elder, and Co., London, 1902, price 6e). The stream of literature which has flowed bo" long and refreshingly from the deanery has in. those later days boon kept full and clear by the daughters of Dean Bradley. Mrs Smith

wrot» 'her "Annals " and the "Deanery,. Guide " before her marriage, and had the satisfaction of watching the latter through 12 editions. That book is, in a sense, the foundation of "The Roll Call," but the chapters have been rewritten and expanded until the authoress suggests that the lastr touches ar& final. The volume is admirably illustrated, and there are plans of the sanctuary, chapels, transepts, and nave. To a large extent "The Roll Call of Westminster Abbey" is the history of England. In this work it is history invested with a distinguished style, and the matter does not lose in interest and grace from its basis of practical information. — The "Memoirs of Sir Edward Blount," which Mr Stuart J. Reid has edited, will be published shortly by Messrs Longmans. Hi» reminiscences open with the return of Lord Anglesey after the Battle of Waterloo, and practically end with the death of Queen Victoria. Tli© book throws vivid sidelights on the reign of Louis Philippe and the Revolution of 184-8, the early days of the Second Empire, the Mexican war, and the' siege of Paris. Sir Edward Blount was her Majesty's Consul during the closing dramatic weeks of the investment of Paris, and the letters whiclt lie despatched by balloon to his wife are freely quoted, and give a realistic picture of the privations of the beleaguered city when the advance- of the German army out off all communication with the outer world. Ths book also contains many interesting details about political and social celebrities, railway progress, in France, club life, and other attractive topics. — Mr Leslie Stephen's "George Eliot," the first of the supplemental volumes to the "English Men of Letters" series, under the " editorship of Mr John Morley, has just been issued. It makes a book of 206 pages. Mr Leslie Stephen is great enough to bogin, quite plainly in his first sentence. This runs: "Mary Ann Evans, as her father recorded in his diary, was born at Arbury Farm at 5 o'clock in the morning of 22nd November, 1819." In the concluding chapter of the book, Mr Stephen says these wise " words on a subject that no amount of discussion can ever settle: — "George Eliot believed that a work of art not only may, but must, exercise also an ethical influence. I will not inquire how much influenc-p is actually exerted by novels upon the morality of their readers ; but so far as any influence is exerted, it is due, I think, in the last resort to the personality of the novelist. That is to say, that from reading George Eliot's novels wo are influenced in the same way as by an -intimacy with George Eliot herself."