BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3832, 23 August 1927, Page 74

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Miss Rebecca West is back in London again after a, successful tour of the United States. She is at work on a new novel.

Miss Mary Agnes Hamilton, whose new novel, “ Folly’s Handbook,” has just been published, recently’ returned from a visit to the United States, where she met many celebrities.

Miss Gertrude Trevelyan, the first; woman to win the Newdigate Prize, is a distant relation of Sir George Ottq Trevelyan, the nephew and biographerof Lord Macaulav.

Herr Emil Ludwig, the German historian, who is on a visit to England, i$ a great admirer of Carlyle, and is making a pilgrimage to Ecelefechan, where Car: lyle is buried.

Dr John ]). Ross, who is responsible for “Who’s Who in Burns,” is a native of Edinburgh, but has been an American citizen for many years past. He is on the staff of the New York Public Library.

It is understood that Mr W. R. Hearst, the American newspaper proprietor, has acquired the controlling interest in tho Connoisseur. He already owns Nash'tj Magazine and Good Housekeeping.

Much is being made of the fact that Mr H. G. Wells is to illustrate the pages of his new novel, “ Meanwhile,” with thumbnail sketches, but it is not the first time he has acted as his own illus= trator. The pages of that neglected work “ Boon ” are similarly diversified.

Three young novelists —atiss Rosa Leh. maim, Mrs See, and Mr Paid Bloomfield unknown to each other, recently chose “Dusty Answer” as the title of their new novels. Miss Lehmann was in first, and so the others have had to alter theirs.

Mrs Helen East wood, the author of “ See a Fine Lady,” is a great personal friend of Mr and Mrs Compton Mackenzie, with whom she has lived at Capri and at Henn. She does most of her writing after her day’s housework is done and the children are in bed.

Very active on behalf of her Women's Public Lodging House Fund, Mrs Cecil Chesterton has recently raised more than £2OOO, which will enable her to go ahead with arrangements for a second house to be opened before the English winter sets in. The first house was established on March 28, and has been full every night, people having to be turned avvav.

Mis Gertrude Atherton in her new novel, “ The Immortal Marriage,” tells the fascinating story of Aspasia and 1 ericles, whose love endured and survived, calumny. Mrs Atherton regards this as the only recorded instance where the greatest man and the greatest woman of an age found each other, and through their love were able to influence the course of history.

The death of Sir Svdney Colvin has resulted in the release of a large quantity of material relating to R. L. Stevenson. ’ Sir Sydney Colvin retained more than 100 letters written by Mrs Sitwell, later Lady Colvin, and himself. These will go to the Advocates Library in Edinburgh, now the Scottish National Library. Other Stevenson relics in Sir Svdney Colvin’s possession were the white’ linen cap he used to wear in Samoa, his riding crop, and his spurs. These are destined fo r the Museum of the Edinburgh R. L. Stevenson Club.

Miss Magdalen King-Hall some 18 months ago received many literary’ bigwigs with her “ Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion in the Year 1764-1765.” This year Miss King-Hall, abandoning her penname of Cleone Knox, has leaped front one century’ to another. From her lively narrative of gay Georgian days she has turned to burlesque a product of the staid age of Victoria. This time she has written the history of Sir Wickham " ooheomb, an ordinary English snob and gentleman. The title of the book is “ I Think I Remember.”

One of the newest and undoubtedly the most successful of the newer recruits to the ranks of the “ best sellers ” i s Captain P. C. Wren, whose “ Beau Geste ’’ has been a film as well as a literary success throughout the English-speaking world. He has just finished another novel about the French Foreign Legion, entitled “ Beau Ideal.”

We are to have yet another volume of the letters of Queen -Victoria. Mr George Earle Buckle, the editor, has discovered much new material which may make something of a stir. The new volume will bring us down to the year 1885, and will cover the battle of Tel-el-Kebir and the Phoenix Park murders, with Gladstone, Disraeli, Parnell, and Gordon among those who figure in it.

In the Strand, London, the saddler’s shop in which Burns's younger brother William worked as an apprentice has been identified. It is now a hat shop. William Burns went to London an inexperienced Ayrshire youth, and letters to him from the poet are in existence. They earnestly cautioned him against the dangers of the capital,- where Robert had never been. The poet warned his Brother particularly against the wiles of London sirens. * * * The novels most in demand in the libraries of the United States, according to the June number of the New York Bookman, are as follows : — 1. Galahad John Erskine 2. To-morrow i Morning Anne Parrish 3. The Plutocrat Booth Tarkington 4. Aii American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser !>. Sorrell and Son Warwick Deeping C. The Private Life , of Helen of ; Troy John Erskine 7. Doomsday Warwick Deeping 8. Revelry Samuel Hopkins • Adams 9. Beau Geste Percival C. Wren 10. Elmer Gantry Sinclair Lewis 11. Show Boat Edna Ferber 12. Under the Tonto > Rim Zane Grey * * * A review by Sir Edmund Gosse of "Dickens in France,” in the London Sunday Times, drew two interesting letters to that journal—one from General Sir lan Hamilton, and the other from Mr Frank M'Donagh, of the Irish Literary Society. Sir lan Hamilton wrote: —

Once upon a time, during 1908 it may have been or perhaps during 1910, my business tool: me ‘o the biggest bookshop in Moscow. In the course of conversation, thinking to bring myself up-to-date in contemporary Russian literature, I asked the manager what author had been his best seller during the previous year. To my astonishment he replied, “ Speaking for my own firm, Dickens has been easily the best seller.”

It is not often that it is necessary to examine the “ points” of a modern first edition to determine its priority of publication (says the New York Bookman), but that is what has happened in the case of Hervey Alien’s “ Tsrafel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe.” On page 629 is a portrait of Longfellow taken about the time he had his quarrel with Poe. The engraving, taken from Graham’s Magazine, 1842, shows Longfellow sitting in a chair with his arm resting on a table. On the table are an inkwell and a wineglass. When the book was in press it was discovered that the wineglass had been introduced into the Graham’s Magazine portrait by a pencil drawing. Herbert Gorman's biography of Longfellow has the same cut, without the wineglass. Accordingly it was eliminated from the plate. There are now two issues of “ Israfel,” of which the “ wineglass ” issue is the “ genuine first.” Since the book is already much sought by collectors of Poe and Longfellow the point is worth regarding.

In view of the high prices which, cable messages inform us, have been paid for the work of Turner, a passage in “ The Unknown Turner,” by Air John Anderson, jun., which has been privately printed for the author, is interesting ami significant: —

I began to gather (Turner's) drawings 35 years ago, and later made the important discovery that one of them bore Turner's signature and the date, in a place and manner that clearly indicated his intention to have it remain hidden. It being one of a group of about 20 drawings I made a careful examination of them all, and found the signatures and dates on every one, and in hidden places. . . . The drawing and sketches are available for examination. The hidden signatures and dates are there. I have found thousands of them, and can name many persons who have, under my guidance, found them also. . . . Turner’s method, apparently. was to write his signature on the selected space (possibly with the aid of a magnifying glass), and then to cover it with such substance as he happened to be using as a medium. . . . He generally placed the signature in the darkest available place, and on a solid line.

The difficulties associated with the arrangements for accommodating the Indian princes who visited London for the coronation of King Edward are described by Mr Percy Armytage (sometime gentleman usher to the King) in his “ Bv the Clock of St. James”: —

A Shah of Persia ate nothing but fruit. •' At a luncheon party at Windsor he ate cherries, and calmly dropped the stones on the carpet. Remarkably acute, he observed the other guests putting their stones on their plates, whereupon he began groping on the floor for those he had already discarded. It was an amusing sight to see a gorgeous royal footman, who at first probably thought his Majesty had dropped one of his famous jewels, pick the stones up and solemnly hand them to the Shah one by one on a salver.” Another visitor was Nasrulla Khan, then heir apparent to the throne of Afghanistan. “ During his stay he exhibited a mild mania for testing telescopes, and -wanted things put on the chimneys of the neighbouring houses for this perfectly innocent but rather tiresome purpose. Another annoying habit was indulged in by a white-robed priest, who early every morning opened a top window and called the inhabitants of Mayfair to prayer 1 ”