BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3828, 26 July 1927, Page 74

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Mr Michael Arlen is holidaying in Buenos Ayres, and will shortly go on to Peru,

Dlr John G. Palache has followed up his study of “Four Novelists of the Old Regime with a book on “ Gautier and the French Romantics.”

Dlr Hilaire Belloc has been holidaying in Corsica, witn the idea, it is rumoured, of collecting new material for a book on Buonaparte.

Now an exile from his native land, living in London and in Paris, Signor Francesco Nitti, formerly Prime Minister of Italy, has written a study of “ Bolshevism, I* ascisni, and Democracy.”

That popular editor and critic, Dlr St. John Adcock, has compiled a second volume of ’’ Gods of Dlodern Grub Street,” in which he will give vivid pen sketches of prominent literary people of the day.

Dlrs Rosita Forbes has just returned from Africa, where she has been directing, a film of one of her own stories about the Riff struggles. In private life she is Dlrs DT'Grath.

Mr Harold Nicholson, the Byron authority and the husband of the poet and novelist, Miss Victoria SackvilleM est, is returning to England on leave from Teheran, where he acts as British Charge d’Affaires.

Dlr Dale Collins, the author of “ Ordeal,” has married Dlrs Aileen Davies, who, like himself, is an Australian. He has just finished a new note], to be entitled “The Sentimentalists.”

Conti ibutions towards the restoration of the Izaak \\ alton Cottage, recently destroyed by fire, will be gratefully received by Dlr P. T. Dale, the curator and hon.' secretary, at 11 Greengate street, Stafford, England. * * *

Dlr Arnold Bennett’s admiration of the works of Eden Phillpotts has been generous and constant, and he is writing an introductory essay to the limited “Widecombe” edition of Phillpotts’s Dartmoor novels.

Dlr Austin Clarke, the gifted Irish poet and author of “The Cattledrive in Connaught,” etc., has written a poetic comedy in three acts, “ The Sou of Learning.” The hero is a wandering scholar of the Dlid<u-

Robert Briffault, who has written The Dlothers, a study of the origins of sentiments and institutions, though born in London, was brought up in New Zealand, served in Gallipoli and France, and won the Dlilitary Cross.

Dlr Charles Landstone, the author of “ Blue Tiger Yard,” is a traveller in pipes and cigarette-holders, and wrote most of his interesting novel in cafes and restaurants while on his rounds. It is said that his order books contained more fiction than commerce!

Dlr David Pye was an intimate friend of George Leigh Diallory, who was killed during the attempt on Mount Everest in 1924. He has written a little account of the mountaineer’s life.

The popularity of books about the sea has increased almost 200 per cent., a well-known publisher said the other day. Of all the writers about ships and the sea none speaks with such authority as Captain Basil Lubbock, who is about to give us “ The Last of the Windjammers.” This is to be an account of every sailin" ship of note during the past GO years. °

\ Mr Charles Petit’s novel of Chinese life, “ The Son of the Grand Eunoch,” is entirely based on fact, and will have as its central figure the mysterious Li Lien

Yin, who dominated China for half a century.

The revival of interest in the Victorians continues, and in" Disraeli, it seems, most of all. After Mr D. L. Murray’s clever study of the statesman comes M. Andre Maurois, the French novelist, who has just finished his Disraeli biography. M. Maurois, in spite of many touches of fancy, has stuck to historical detail.

It is some time now since we had a novel from that delightful storyteller, Mr A. E. W. Mason. Soon, however, we arc to have one with the somewhat unusual title of “No Other Tiger.” Besides this, he has dramatised “ The House of the Arrow,” which is to be produced in London during the winter. Mr Mason has just returned from South Africa.

Since the death of that master authority on the eighteenth century, Austin Dobson, much new material has come to hand regarding the life and times of Horace Walpole. Austin Dobson, it will be remembered, wrote a delightful study of that fascinating dilettante which has now been edited by the greatest living Walpole authority, Dr Paget Toynbee, who has incorporated much new material.

It is hardly likely that there will ever again be a Longfellow boom such as there was in the 'sixties of last century, but meanwhile in America some remarkably interesting data concerning the poet’s life has come to light and stimulated a new interest in his work. Mr Herbert Gorman, who has also written a biography of Mr James Joyce, has now written a study of Longfellow.

The countless English admirers of “ Where the Blue Begins ” and “ Thunder on the Left,” will be glad to hear that Mr Christopher Morley has just published a new novel (or, rather, a long short story) in America, and doubtless we shall soon see it in this country. It is entitled “ The Arrow,” and is dedicated to the R.M.S. Caronia, in memory of several pleasant crossings made by Mr Morley on his way to holidays in Brittany. Mr Morley courteously refers to the Caronia as “ that elderly princess among ships.”

Thanks to the work of Captain Knight and Mr Seton Gordon, we are now in possession of much new material about the life and habits of that most magnificent of all the birds to be found in Gieat Britain, the Golden Eagle. Mr Gordon and his wife have recently been intensively studying the Golden Eagle, living in a tent in the Highlands, wliere the birds have their aeries, and Mr Gordon is about to give us a book on the subject—“ Days With the Golden Eagle.”

At an sale at Sothcbvs, London. on April 27, a slightly-defectivc copy of the first Kilmarnock Burns works was offered. M ritten in the volume was a song of four verses, copied from the Courier of June 2,179 G. This example, which measured Sin by 4Jin, sold for £730. As was stated in a notice* of a facsimile of this work (published by Werner Lauric) in The Australasian of June 18, an uncut copy of the Kilmarnock original was sold in 1922 for £IGOO, and another in 1925 brought £1750.

The prize of £lOO offered by the Strand Magazine has been won by Mr It. T. Norman, Wellingborough, Northants, who correctly named 10 stories of the 12 selected by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the best. Seven competitors chose nine stories rightly, while a great number were correct with eight. The winning list of selections is as follows :— " The Speckled Band,” " The Red-headed League,” “ The Dancing Men.” “ The Final Problem,” “ A Scandal in Bohemia,” “ The Empty House,” “ The Five Orange Pips ” “ The Second Stain,” “ The Devil’s Foot,” The Priory School,” “ The Musgrave Ritual,” and “ The Reigate Squires.”

Philatelists will be interested in Mr F. J. Melville’s “The Mayfair Find of Hare Stamps,” published by H. R, Harmer. London. It is there recorded that GO years ago a young enthusiast had sent a few pounds apiece to' the postmasters in Western Australia, Queensland, Ceylon, and other colonies, and had received sheets of their local stamps. He put them away and forgot them. A year or two ago the lady of the family, while searching for a document in gn attic, found the boy's correspondence with the stamps. She had the good sense to call in an expert valuer, and the result was a sale that thrilled the whole stamp-collecting world, and yielded a total sum of £7707. One complete sheet of 2-10 British Columbia 2Jd stamps of ISGI fetched £750, and a probably unique sheet of the halfpenny (lilac) stamps at Ceylon, dated ISSS, brought £GSO.

Jerome K. Jerome, the son of a clergyman, wag born on May 2, 1850, at Walsall, and began writing in the mid ’eighties. He was in turn clerk, schoolmaster, and actor. His “ On the Stage and Off ” was the outcome of two and a-half years of experience. In 1886 he began to write plays. • “ Woodbarrow Farm ” was long a favourite, and there were about 20 others. Among the best known were “ New Lamps for Old,” “ The Prude’s Progress,” and “ Fanny and the Servant Problem ”; but best known of all was “ The Passing of the Third Floor Back,” that play about a mysterious stranger whose presence in "a mean boarding house brought out the best in the character of everyone. It was

written in a short story, too, and in each case was reverently though not ponderously treated. Forbes Robertson took the chief part in London in 1908. Theatregoers in Australia saw it played by Matheson Lang. Among Jerome’s other books were “ Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow ” (1898), “ The Diary of a Pilgrimage,” ‘‘Novel Notes,” and “Tea Table Talk.” In the ’nineties Jerome founded anti edited (with Robert Barr) the Idler, a monthly magazine, and later he became editor of To-day, a weekly publication. To these entertaining periodicals men who later became famous contributed ; but neither was financially successful.

With the object of requesting that the Victorian Ministry should stipulate that a proportion of the grant to country libraries should be spent in Australian literature, a deputation from the Australian Literature Society waited on the Chief Secretary (Mr Prendergast) on June 15. The president of the Australian Literature Society (Dr J. Booth) said that at the present time there were a good many people who were not aware that an Australian literature existed, and for this reason his society asked that the Ministry should stipulate that 10 per cent, of the grant to libraries outside the metropolitan area should be expended in the purchase of Australian authors to justify the requestgrant to institutions beyond the 10-mile radius was £2720 last year. It might be contended that there were not enough Australian anthers to justify the request. He was able to present a list of 400. and more could be added to these. Every department of literature was represented. Not only poetry and fiction, but drama, history,' la’w, and theology had writers of outstanding merit. Mr Prendergast, in reply, said that he had full sympathy with the aims of the deputation. He would see that all libraries in receipt of the State grant would receive circulars asking that Australian books should be obtained wliere possible. He was afraid that a per cent, condition could not be imposed in view of the small amounts received and the necessity for purchasing works of reference.