LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2672, 31 May 1905, Page 72

LITERARY NOTES.

I —Mr T. Fisher Unwin is bringing out in his Colonial Library "A Modern Utopia-," the latest book by Mr H. G. Wells, the most interesting and stimulating of modern prophets. "'A modern Utopia' completes the task Mr Wells commenced with ' Anticipations,' and carried on through ' Mankind in the Making.' . . . The method here adopted is different from that of the two former members of the series. - . . Mr Wells, evidently with a view of making a. wider appeal, has adopted something of the dramatic form in combination with that of the essayist. . . . The work is crowded with thought and suggestion ; with all those characteristics of candour and sincerity which have made Mr Wells the author, perhara, at the present time, most I worth reading- of modern English writers engaged in the function of propheoy. .. . . It is a work which some may find exasperating, but which even its opponents should study in serious fashion— -at once eloquent provocative, and stimulating. — I I Daily News. . . j \J^ Have you forgotten who is the writer i behind this or that pen-name in fiction, or did you ever know? Here is some information "Rolf Boldrewood" is Judge Browne;; Miss Braddon is Mrs John Maxwell ; "lota > is Mrs ManningtJn Caffyn ; "Lucas Gleeve is Mrs Howard Kingscote ; "Ralph Connor" is the Rev. O. W. Gordon; "Q" its Mr Quiller-Couch ; "Tasma" is Mme. Couveur ; "Ouida" is Mdlle. De la Ramee ; and "F. M. Allen" ie Mr Edmund Downey.

— Tom Moore's life was a succession of social and literary successes. He refused the temporary editorship of The Times. Ha declined to r>ermit the Government to

establish a Poet-laureateship in Ireland, and appoint him to the rost. He would r>ot contrihut-e a fe.v lines of verse to Heath's Magazine at £100 per line. He was the friend of £bott. and the entire pit in the Edinburgh 1 Theatre rose to welcome him to Scotland. In Ireland the girls crowned him with bay leaves, and the men wished to send him into Parliament. He wa9 the friend, too. whom Byron loved most of all.— To-day.

— Novels rrere ©nee described felicitously hv ThacTcerav as "the sweets" of literature. The other day a taWe of the 24- novelists who appealed most to the readers taking books from the Free Public libxara

Edinburgh was compiled. The table is interesting, but not particularly comforting from certain points of view. It is interesting as showing that of the 24 no fewer than 11 are lady novelists, three, of whom— Mrs Henry Wood, Mrs Hungerford, and Miss Marie Corelli— head the list in the order here given; and, further, that Scott, Uickens, and George Eliot are very nearly equal m popular favour. Thackeray is only eighteenth, while Charles Reade, who it might have been thought had established a greater popularity, is at the very bottom ot the list. Such verdicts, happily, are not

— The race of London Bohemians is almost extinct. There are not a dozen left whose names have been heard of. The others— those who are not dead— have "gone under. The pace of modern life has been too hot for men who only played with their work. Nor need we shed tears over their disappearance. The tribe was largely made up of authors who did not write anything worth buying, of actors and artists who had missed their chances, of a sprinkling of noblemen who were not greatly esteemed in their own rank of life, and of middle-class demireps who liked to hob-nob with these derelicts of the peerage. The society which they formed was redeemed by a. few men of genius who enjoyed flattery, and earned it by their good nature. But this sort of company, though it contained picturesque and amusing figures, was never very pleasant or very happy. It was jealous, it was quarrelsome, and it was apt to be merely disreputable. Clubbable it never was, or could be. It involved too many "friendly leads" for distressed brethren. — Saturday Review.

—An excellent edition of the "Poems of John Keats" has just been issued by Messrs Methuen (7s 6d net). The volume has been, edited by Mr E. de Selincourt, who contributes notes and an interesting- introduction. Mr de Selineouri has been able to include in this edition the result of two> important recent discoveries — namely, tho autograph MS. of "Hyperion" and the Woodhouse transcript of "The Fall of Hyperion, and Other Poems." "The first," says the editor, "ha<s preserved for us many earlier readings of ' Hyperion ' of intense interest in a study of Keats's art; the second enables us to correct the printed text of ' The Fall of Hyperion ' in several important places, and adds 21 new lines ; whilst among the minor poems at the end of the MS. are two which have not been printed before." The latter have no great intrinsic value, but they help to an understanding of Keats's methods and the development of his genius. I quote a few lines: Fill for me a brimming bowl, And let me in it drown my soul ; But put therein some drug, designed To banish Women from my mind ; For I want not the stream inspiring That fills the mind with fond desiring. But I want as deep a draught As e'er from Lethe's wave was quaffed; From niy despairing heart to charm The Image of the fairest form

That e'er xny wandering eyes beheld,

That e'er niy wandering fancy spelled. These lines are dated August, 1814. Mr do Selinconrt's notes are most valuable. — T. P.'s Bookshelf.

— The Editor of Vanity Fair: His Literary Career. —

Mr B. Fletcher Robinson, the editor of Vanity Fair, was bred in Devonshire, and, uiider the influence of Dartmoor air, developed a stature of 6ft 3in. and a weight of over 14st when in training. - He played in the Cambridge football fifteen for three years, rowed for his college for the same period, was tried in the 'Varsity? eight, and won a cup at Henley. He was, moreover, a scholar of his college, and took two high honour degrees in history and law. The journalistic instinct; showed ea-rlv in him, and for a year he edited the University humorous paper, the Granta, of which Mr R. C. Lehmann vas proprietor, and to which Mr Barry Pain, Owen Seaman, Carr Bosanquet, and A. C. Deane were regular contributors.

Coming to London, he was called to the Bar, but never practised. He spent a. year abroad visiting the capitals cf Europe, and shortly afterwards went out to Stouth Africa, as the chief of the Daily Express correspondents. On his return home he became editor of that paper, and he held the post for three and a-haif years. He still writes in its pages, though he has now migrated to tho editor's chair of Vanity Fair.

He is a member of many clubs — the Reform, Union, Authors', Leander. and Almanack's being amongst them. He has abandoned more strenuous athleticism for golf, and the collection of china and old prints. His first book on Rugby football raa through many editions, and since then bo has produced a number of short stories, which have -a greater popularity in America than in England.

A sensational serial of his which appeared in the Windsor Magazine, "The Trail of the Dead." was translated into four languaijes. He also assisted Sir Arthur Cci-an Doyle in the production of "Tha Hound of the Baskervilles," the scene o£ which lies nea" to Sir Fletcher Robinson's Devonshire home. — Sketch.