BOOKS AND BOOKMAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3889, 25 September 1928, Page 72

BOOKS AND BOOKMAN.

H. G. Wells is spending the summer months in Paris, where he is writing a new novel. * * * There will shortly be issued a further selection of poems by Wilfrid Gibson, written since 1925, under the title “The Golden Room.” * * * Arthur Burdett Frost, who was known all over the world as the original illustrator of “Tom Sawyer,” “Uncle Remus,” and the “Mr Dooley” books, has just died in America. * * ■ * Stanley Weyman’s last novel, completed shortly before his death, is a privateering yarn of the Napoleonic wars. * * * Lord Birkenhead’s next excursion into authorship will consist of a collection of “ The Hundred Best English Essays,” with an analytical criticism, to be published by Cgssell. » * * Jack Lindsay, the son of Norman Lindsay, the well-known Australian painter, is settling in London. He is 'not only a poet and a critic but a publisher, and soon hopes to start a entitled the London Aphrodite. * * * Mr Edward Clodd, the author of “ The Childhood of the World,” has been seriously ill at his home at Aldeburgh. He is in his eighty-seventh year. * * * H. M. Tomlinson has almost finished writing his second novel. Unlike “ Gallions Reach,” it will deal with the war. Mr Tomlinson saw much of the actual fighting as a war correspondent. * . * * E. H. W. Meyerstein, who gave up a post in the MSS. department of the British Museum to devote himself to literature, is writing a new life of Chatterton, in which will appear a hitherto unpublished poem by “ the wonderful boy.” * * * Sir Henry Imbert-Terry, who has published histories of Charles II and George I, has now launched out as a writer of mystery stories. His first “ thriller ” will be called “Acid.” * * * Although Samuel Butler’s works are widely read in Spain and France they are almost unknown in Germany. A complete edition is therefore being brought out in German. Herberth E. Herbitschka is the editor, and has translated most of the volumes himself. * * * “ Extraordinary Women ” is the extraordinary title of Compton Mackenzie’s new novel, which is to be published in a limited edition of 2000 copies, price one guinea. The theme is said to be “ unusual ” —at anyrate it is being kept a close secret. Which is the strangest book title? It would be hard to beat “ A’ Ae ’Oo,” which has been chosen by Mrs Jean Bax-

ter for a forthcoming volume of Scots verse. As most people know, it means “All one wool.”

Robert Lynd, who has recently become a motoring fan, is at work on a book on Robert Louis Stevenson for the .English Men of Letters Series.

Leonard P. Scott, a young Ulsterman who recently crossed the Sahara alone, and was the first person to-sail for 170.0 miles down the Niger in an open canoe, is writing a book of his experiences.

Rudyard Kipling is writing a new story —which may develop into a fulllength novel—in which wireless plays an important part. He has been collecting data from the wireless enthusiasts among his friends.

George Bernard Shaw, who recently appeared on the Movietone and who has made an interesting set of gramophone records, has accepted an invitation to visit Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford at Hollywood some time next year.

Charles Barry, the author of mystery stories, was a volunteer in the Imperial Russian Army during the war, and won the Cross of St. George, which was the Russian equivalent of the V.C. His name, however, is on the Soviet’s list of those to whom a visa is not to be granted.

A dialogue between George Moore and Humbert Wolfe is full of possibilities, and one is promised in Mr Wolfe’s forthcoming “ Monologues and Dialogues.” This is Mr Wolfe’s first prose volume, with the exception of a book of fables which appeared many years ago.

Evelyn Waugh, a brother of Alec Waugh and a son of Arthur Waugh the publisher, has followed his study of Rossetti with a novel entitled “ Decline and Fall,” which he has illustrated himself.

Sir- William Orpen has sketched the jacket of H. G. Wells’s new novel, “ Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island.” It depicts the central incident in the book ——the Sacred Lunatic on a cannibal island.

Michael Sadleir is adding to his biography of Trollope, an illustrated bibliography of the novelist’s works. It is said to be the first complete analysis of the history and structure of novels, and includes a general survey of the effect of publishing conditions on the rarity of books.

Mrs Eleanor - Elsner is an indefatigable traveller, as might be guessed by her lively travel books. She has a flat in Westminster, but it only sees her between her trips into strange places not yet known to the tourist. The sequel to one of her recent trips, which ■was not without excitement, will be peen in a book to be called “ The Magic Of Morocco.”

The factory girl Kathleen Woodward, who last year wrote a life of Queen Mary, has given the title “dipping Street ” to a book she has completed. It contains a record of her own childhood spent in a London slum, and will be published soon.

Mr Hugh Walpole, novelist, and Mr J. B. Priestley, essayist, have completed a joint novel, which consists of a series of letters between two correspondents, Mr Walpole being the writer of one set and Mr Priestley the writer of the other.

The autograph log of a portion of Captain Cook’s last voyage, by Henry Roberts, mate of Cook’s ship, H.M.S. Resolution, on 130 pages folio, and ranging in date from October 4, 1778, to November 30, 1779, covering the second visit to the Sandwich Islands and the death of Captain Cook, was sold at Sotheby’s, London, in July for £l2OO.

George Darley (1795-1846), who is claimed by some to be one of the finest English lyric poets, is to be the subject of a biography by Claude Colleer Abbott, to be published in the autumn. He wrbte one such perfect imitation of seventeenth-century verse that even Palgrave was deceived, and put the poem into “ The -Golden Treasury,” only to take it out again when he was undeceived.

Mrs Clough Williams-Ellis, daughter of St. Loe Strachey and wife of the author of “ England and the Octopus,” is bringing out a new life of Ruskin. It will be interesting to see what she has to say about the young lady with whom he was much enamoured late in life, and with whom he carried on an animated correspondence. This has never yet been published. I wonder whether it ever will be.

It is difficult for us to realise how troublesome is the negro problem in America, and how rigidly the colour line is drawn in some parts of the United States. In certain cities there are “ clean streets ” where no negro is allowed to live; and it is the intrusion of a “white negro” into one of these preserves that supplies tile' motif of a negro problem novel, “ The Walls of Jericho,” by Rudolph Fisher, which is to be published soon. Dreadful things happen to this white negro when he manages to buy a-house in a clean street. But lie is obtainate and will not be ■warned, even when his house is burned down oyer his head.

The centenary of the death of Schubert comes next November. It will be commemorated by the issue of a book on “ Schubert’s Songs ” by Richard Capell, the musical critic of the Daily Mail. This is the most complete study of its subject ever attempted, either in England or Germany. Mr Capell tackles the composer and his 600 songs from an original point of' view; but even those who find him provocative will admit the value of his book as a piece of criticism. * * * Few books of the coining season are likely to cause more talk than a “ psychological biography ” of King Edward, by Dr W. H. Edwards. The title alone, “ The Tragedy of King Edward VII,” is striking enough. The author justifies it, I understand, by showing King Edward’s life as one of frustration and inhibition, following an unhappy childhood and a youth largely absorbed by •irksome ceremonial idleness. And when at last he came to the throne—l 3 years after one of his young nephews had become Emperor of Germany, and seven years after the other had been proclaimed Czar of Russia —he was a man of 60, going down the hill, without ever having had a chance to put the ideas and political ambitions of his 'youth into practice. Perhaps tragedy is the right word.