LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2651, 4 January 1905, Page 70

LITERARY NOTES.

• v i . - , ■ i s\ —.The local colouring of Hall' Caine's new 1 book, "The' Prodigal Son" (Heinemann), is chiefly that of Iceland', and its scenery and domestic life sire,' as- may be supposed; graven with the master touch. The -sustained sadness of the subject will be" a cauae of regret to those who desiro and 1 , expect a happy ending to a story; but for character analysis, dramatio force, human sympathy, irresistible march to a great climax, and power to stir the emotions of the reader, the novel may be ranked among the very greatest of the author's works. — I have- lately been reading several very brilliant novels, and I have been astonished at the high standard' of excellence attaine-di by their writers. The novels I refer to are "Emmanuel Burden" (Methuen), by Mr Hilaire Belloc; "Sabrina Warham" (John Murra3-), by Mr Laurence Houseman; "Genevra" (Methuen), by Mr Charles Slavriott; '"Capricious Caroline" I Methuen), by B. Maria- Albanesi, the author of "Susannah and One Other." Now, all these novels are interesting, and I could! write a column about each of them. But of them all, is there one which will live more than three months? — James Douglas, in the Star. — The Albany Magazine is a new venture starting with fine ideals. Thus says the editor in a prefatory note: — "We wish to retire a little from the roar and flood' of the traffic; we do not enter into competition with haphazard collections of adventure sfories and descriptive sketches of the Homes of Famous Actors, profusely illustrated with process blocks. We dosire, in fine, to make the Albany a magazine— which should surely signify a storehouse of matter worthy of preservation, not a mere congeries of worthless rubbish. The Albany, if we 3ue< v eed in carrying out our lofty aspirations, is to be a literary magazine." Among the contributors to the" first, immbtr are- Messrs Eden Phillpotts, Morley Roberts, Richard Whifceing, Edward Morton, Henry Cresswell, and Francis Gribble. —Mr Baring Gould gathers together a number of his shorter stories and makes them "A Book ot Ghosts'' (Methuen and On.). Ond of them appeared in Once a Week when that serial was in its vigour

over 50 years ago, and' young writers may note that at that time this popular novelist had already formed the style to which he has always been faithful. Quite recently Mr Baring .Gould has also published his twenty-third novel (Methuen), the scene being laid in a wild South Wales promontory, which furnishes the title, "In Dewislaud." It is a tale of the Rebecca riots. —On Friday, November 4-, there burst upon an expectant world the latest and, according to Mr William Heinemann. th© greatest of the works of Mr Hall Came. Heralded by the blare- of thousands of preliminary puffs the nov-el was published, simultaneously in nine different counjfies and in eight different languages. Happy Air Hall Came! Happy Mr Heinemann ! Thousands of expectant readers have by row, we must presume, .gushed over it, and numberless Nonconformist divines have found it a convenient subject for tlieir Sunday's sermon. "The Prodigal Sou"! The name aloi.e is sufficient to commend ie to that la.rge class of people who demand! { thai their fiction shall contain a flavouring ! of religion, and who like to have their liorro-r of sm intensified by as clear a description of it as discretion would permit. — Saturday Review. — Burn ham Thorpe, though by large numbers unknown, is a pleasant, spot in nortl'-west Norfolk, to which much interest i r;.t(.aches, apart from its close association. 1 | with such places as -Sandringham, Lynn, i Heaeham, Wells, and Hunstantbh. It was j there (hat one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of Britain's admirals was born, and. '"The Birthplace of Nelson" (Cassell and 'Co., price bd) is the title, given to a, booklet combining facts relating, to the Nelson, j family, especially to its (most distinguished i member, and a description of the village J so well beloved- by -the hero of Trafalgar. ! The author, is Mr'F. J. Cross, the- illustrai tions arc from photographs by Mr O. D. | Cvoss, and the proceeds arising from its | sale are io he applied to the restoration of i All Saints' Church. Burnham Thorpe, where • Lord Nelson's father was rector for 46 j years. — Field. * / } — "John Oliver Hobbes,' 1 ' as Mrs Craigie j continues best to ba known to the English [ reading public, is reversing the usual order J of things in turning into a novel her play i "The Flute of Pan," which Miss Olga !-Nethersole produced aft the Shaftesbury I Theatre; but she has not been without prei decessors in that particular practice.. Charles [ ±leade's unsuccessful play "Gold"' furnished much of the "material for that most popular of all his tales, "It is Never Too Late to .Mend"^ and' the late "Mr Wilson Barrett elongated into novels his two plays of very "varying success — "The Sign of the Cross" and ,"The..Jo£aters of Babylon." "No Thoroughfare" and "The Frozen Deep," in ,boih-?oT which Dickens and Wilkie Collins had tMeir shares, were similarly dealt- with ;, and,,' upon- the whole, the novel, elaborated -frpm.,-a- play lias' seemed more, satisfactory than' 1 ho. play 'condensed fjronv-a. -novel. ?■ ', — Professor Goldwin Smith tells -us- in the * American '^Historical Reyiew that there 'are no [great+^poets leftf— -"Neither^in England .nor' auywK^re elsevdoes fher^> -appear to be a. great "poet. ■"Imagination has taken refugs in novcis, of which' there is -%-^eluge/ though among , them, George ■ Eliot'- in. her peculiar -line?- exceptedy there- is not the rival bf. Mis!>' Austen, -Walter , Scott, Thackeray, or Dickens. • The phenomenon appears to be common Ic,Europe in general. Is science killing poetic feeling? Darwin owns that be had entirely lost ail his .taste- for-poetry, and nob only for ppetry, trat for anything sesthetje. Yet \ Tennyson seems Ho have shown that even, science- -itself has a. sentiment of its :>wn,- and one capable/ of 'poetio preisentation. . . ' '. Ours," concludes - tie .professor, "is manifestly an age , of transition. Of •vhatifc is the preeursbr an old man is not likely to see." —Mr T. D. Sullivan, the doyen of Irish journalists, who* is now in his ' seventyeighthyear, is about to publish his reminiscences tinder the title o£ "Recollections of' Troubled Times in Ireland" (says the- Westminster Gazette). As -the author of Ireland's National Anthem and the poet of the Parnelhte party, Mr Suilivan is best known in England. Fifty years ago he joined the Nation staff in Bublin, and it was as proprietor and 1 editor of that journal, when ln> was Lord 1 Mayor of Dublin ■ in, 18£6-7 and member of Parliament, that he was imprisoned for press offences under Mr Ballour's \. Coercion Act. . ' While • immured for two months in TuDamore Gaol he wrote "Prison Poems," which forms one' of several volumes of" verse that he has published l . His principal prose publication is a brief life of his brother, tho late A. M. Sullivan, M.P., whom Mr Gladstone described as "the t eloquent naenifoer for Louth," a constituency (appropriately represented in re- . cent years by Mr Sullivan's son-in-law, Mr T. M:\Healy. , '- v ' - M — "Rita" discourses 'in ' London Opinion on "The 'Value of Literary Criticism"': — Why should there be no standard for literary criticism? Painting and -musio have such a. standard-. A critic has to abido •'by the rules of the art he judges. But with literature ifc appears that who ca:i write half a dozen lines of fairly grammatical English may bo set to review a book by an editor if he is "on the staff' * of his paper. I have good authority for stating- that the said reviewer often takes a. batch of books home, and permits wife, daughter, and -friend to try their " 'prentice hand" at criticism. The excuse for this scamping of duty is that the pay is so bad and the time occupied by the thoughtful or judiciou-s perusal of the work in question would seem absolutely wasted. I have more than once been credited with a. plot I never invented, and my book with a termination it never possessed ! Probably the=ie were the results of home criticism. Complaints were useless. The editor, a3 usual, refused to publish my remonstrances. I had only the hope left to me that the circulation of his journal was as limited as — its compel enee. But do the public rea,cl critiai^ms of books any more than they read criticisms of plays?