AMONG THE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Otago Witness, Issue 2923, 23 March 1910, Page 88

AMONG THE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Few literary secrets of identity have been better kept than that of " Fiona Macleod," and, if only for this reason, there should be a public for the " Collected Edition," which Mr Heinemann announces in seven voiimes, quite apart from the curiously magical and unearthly quality of the writing. Most of their critics have recognised the triple virtue of their prose—beauty of symbolism, of thought, and form—and, considering that the pseudonym has eclipsed the actual name of the writer, the publisher is well advised to rank the volumes as those of " Fiona Macleod," rather than that of William Sharp. Besides poems and dramas, the works contained in the seven volumes are a dozen in number, including the better-known, like " The Sin Eater," " The Washer of the Ford," " lona," and "The Mountain Lovers," and somewhere, we suppose, room will be found for " Green Fire," although it is not included in the prospectus list. In any case, the works which Mr Sharp wrote under this signature between 1894 and 1905 are here presented, for the first time, in a complete edition, and only such excisions and revisions have been allowed as the writer arranged for in the wishes and instruct tions he left behind. At-last, therefore, the works enter into Celtic literature in a definite form and under the rightful explanation, but we can see that for many years yet librarians and catalogue compilers will be puzzled by references to " Miss " Macleod. Three books , dealing with what might be called the purely literary quality of authorship, to be published by the Macmillan Company, are " Essays of Modern Novelists," by William Lyon Phelps, Professor of English in Yale College; " A Group of English Essays," by Professor C. T. Winchester, and " The Inspiration of Poetry," by G. E. Woodberry. In the first of these the author considers critically the work of some of the leading writers of the day, such as Kipling,' Hardy, Bjornson, De Morgan, Mrs Ward, Sienkiewicz. Professor Winchester's volume is one of mingled criticism and biography devoted to .a consideration of the men who. are generally regarded as the founders of the modern essay—the early writers for the Edinburgh Review* Charles Lamb, De Quincey, and other notable authors of the first part of the nineteenth century. In " The inspiration of Poetry," based on his Lowell lectures, Mr Woodberry takes up a number of the great names of literature :—such as Camoens, Cervantes, Marlowe —and aims to show wherein these men were really possessed with an inspiration that has carried conviction and enlightenment to future generations. : * The Trustees of Columbia University announce that they have arranged to publish through the Columbia University fress a complete edition of the works of John Milton, in verse and in prose, in English and hi. Latin. The editorial supervision of the work has been accepted by William P. Trent, LL.D., 'Professor of English Literature in Barnard College, Columbia University. Professor Trent has already published, a study of Milton, and is now completing a biography and bibliography of Daniel Defoe, which is to be issued shortly in three volumes by the Columbia University Press. For his difficult task Professor Trent is qualified by life-long devotion to the great poet and by a special training in English history. The Columbia University edition of Milton is intended to be complete, authoritative, and definitive. It will extend to not less tnan eight volumes, large octavo. It will be illustrated by -a chronological sequence of portraits of Milton, and also by views of places identified with the poet. It will be furnished with facsimiles- of manuscripts and of title pages. Special attention will be given to bibliographical detail. In addition to the standard library form, this work will be published also in a limited large paper edition. Nothing in book form could well be nfore appealing to genuine booklovers than the" reprints that come from the Oxford Clarendon Press (Henry Frowde). The stately edition of Spenser, edited by Mr J. C. Smith, is completed by publication of "The Faerie Queene," in two volumes. Mr S. P. Vivian has edited, for publication in similar form, the volume of "Campion's Works," which includes the Latin poems and proße treatises along with the lovely lyrics. In smaller but quite charming form, we have the " Select Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed," edited by Mr A. D. Godley; "Shelley's Literary and Philosophical Criticism," edited by Mr John Shawieroes; Lowell's "Fireside Travels," edited by Mr E. V. Lucas; " A Hundred Verses from Old Japan," beipg a translation by Mr Wililam N. Porter of the " Hyaka-nin-isshiu " (with the original text and native illustrations); Sir William Temple's " Essays on Ancient and Modern Learning and on Poetry," edited bv Professor J. E. Spingarn; the poems of Keats,' edited by Mr M. Robertson from the edition of 1820,; and (in the "Tudor and Stuart Library"! Browne's " Religio Medici" with Kenelm Henry Digby's " Observation? " upon it. More than 70 years have passed since England was first thrilled by these words : "A large piece of ice disappeared; the water bubbled up over it; Mr Pickwick's hat, gloves; and handkerchief were floating on the surface; and this was all of Mr Pickwick that anybody could see," and first held its sides with laughter over the other doingfi of that immortal person, his 'friends; and his faithful Sam.]. "Set ; the;ibook if as ponular to-day as everi.it W;as ; anions? all classes of Englishmen, from the highest to the lowest, - from the most intellectual to the least; and few are they who have come to the years of manhood and cannot, from memory, describe one or more of the exploits with which it is filled. And. among the moaf. countless editions that have been issued of it, none i 3 more inviting than Chap-

man and Hall's so-called Topical Edition, in two volumes, with its fine type, admirable reproduction of the original illuminating prefaces, and over 200 additional photographs and drawings, collected and annotated by Mr C. van Noorden, and shedding new light on the characters and places touched upon by the master. For instance, there is a photograph of the actual scene of tile meeting of the Brick lane Branch of the Temperance Association, showing the ladder down which Mr Stiggins knocked Brother Tadger with unerring aim, another of Queen square, Bath, where Mr Cyrus Bantam lived, a .charming engraving' of Dorking Churchyard, where Mrs Weller was buried, a drawing of Dulwich Picture Gallery, where Mr Pickwick, his wanderings over, was frequently to be seen contemplating the works of art, a photograph of Lant street, the scene of Mr Sawyer's supper-party, a charming drawing of the courtyard of the White Hart in the Borough, in which Pickwick first met Sam, and scores of other pictures of similar interest. It is all so well bound that it lies open comfortably on the table: —and the reader's tendency will be to have it on his table, and not on his shelves. In spite of its price (245) it is the cheapest edition of the masterpiece which we have so far encountered. The character of -Dr Robertson's new book in " The Papal Conquests " (Morgan and Scott, 6s 6d), is, remarks the Pall Mall Gazette, best exemplified by a quotation or two. The Church of Rome is '' a Satanic agency"; priests of the Roman Church, " as Italians have often told me," kill a sick man " by simply leaning heavily with their arms on his chest, or compressing with their fingers his throat, when administering the viaticum." New man and Manning were both " degraded I mentally and morally by their becoming | Roman Catholics " ; only those " who are still in the grip and power of Satan will ever -be found entering Satan's church." : Rome is "the most-demoralising agency | in the world." It is evidently useless to i attempt any reasoned protest .against j language of this kind in these columns, \ us Dr Robertson believes the English j press is paid by Rome. But there are a few matters of fact which do not show j Dr Robertson's candour in a very pleasant j light. For instance, he writes : "As 1 Mr Ruskin has said, ' the entire doctrine j and system of that Church is in the fullest sense anti-Christian,' and "* its lying and idolatrous power is the darkest plague that ever held commission to hurt the earth.' " It is true John Ruskin wrote this; but in republishing *' The Seven Lamps of Architecture" he omitted this, and other similar passages, as " pieces of rabid and 'utterly" false Protestantism." What would Dr Robertson say to a Jesuit who quoted his authorities in so misleading a manner? Again, writing' of 1 the Index Prohibitorum et i Expurgatorum, Dr Robertson says : " Bad I books, immoral books, they almost let j alone." There is much virtue in an i '' almost," but the casual reader would ■ hardy gather from this that Boccaccio and Zola are both on the Index. The whole book is so violent in tone that, were we bitten with the atati-Jesuit craze, we might "almost " think that Dr Robertson was a Jesuit in disguise, writing to rouse sympathy for the Roman Church ! Finally, Dr Robertson compains not infrequenty of the dirty and poor people who frequent Roman Churches, and girls at the lowly origin of the Pope and of Cardinal Antonelli ("sprung from a family of donkeydrivers"). We would advise him to refrain, in future, from that line of argument. It is uncomfortably similar to the taunts brought against the ' early Christians, this charge of poverty and •dirt. And as to mean descent—well, Matthew was a publican and |Peter a fisherman; and against Whom was the sneer thrown " Is not this the Carpenter's Son V The recent appearance of Vol. XXIII (being the supplement) of the reissue of the great " Dictionary of National Bio- ! graphy " reminds us of a mighty undertaking worthily planned, ably executed, i punctually completed, and finally even improved upon. The portrait and memoir of George Smith, the munificent publisher, which are prefixed to this final i instalment, present to its readers a great | figure in the world both of letters and j industry, a man who deserved well of his J country in more ways than one. For was not the pillar of the great dictionary j also the friend of Ruskin and Thackeray. i of the Brownings and Trollope, and almost the discoverer of Charlotte Bronte and Mrs Humphry Ward ? Did he not found one of our few surviving literary i magazines, the Cornhill, and the Pall Mall Gazette? Leslie Stephen, the first editor of the " Dictionary," unlike his proprietor, lived to receive recognition. On his coadjutor, Mr Lee, has fallen the bulk of the labour, .and we hope he may live to preside over at least another Supplement. Though several of his leading contributors, such as Joseph Knight,the veteran dramatic critic, that excellent biographer of painters, Cosmo Monkhouse, Dr Garnett, Miss Clerke, the astronomer, and others have fallen out of the ranks, there remains a strong nucleus of the younger men to carry on the work. Here we may mention a few dates in the history of what Dr Jessopn once just'y called 'the magnum opus of our generation. The first of the 63 original volumes was issued in January, 1885. under the editorship of "Leslie Stephen, who retired from editing, though he continued largely to contribute,, in the spring of 1891. The original Supplement under th/> editorship of Mr Lee (who. had been sole chief since Stephen's retirement, and had been associated with him for a short time previously) appeared in 1901. the death of Queen Victoria being fixed upon as the chronological limit. A very useful " Index and Epitome," containing every; name in both the body of the work and the Supplement, came next. Finally, the reissue of the whole of the original Dictionary and Supplement at a third of the original price, and compressed

into a third of the space (23 volumes instead of 66) was begun in March, 1900, and has just been concluded. The same punctuality as had been observed in the original issue, arid which has no example in the annals of foreign State-aided national biographies, has characterised the reissue, in which the bibliography of the articles has in most cases been brought up to date. A small instance of this may be noticed in the article on Matthew Arnold in the recently-published Supplement; where one of Arnold's daughters, the editor of selections from his " Notebooks," appears as "the Hon. Mrs Anmine Wodehouse, afterwards' (1909). Lady Sandhurst." ,