BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3961, 11 February 1930, Page 68

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

“ The Personal Memoirs of Saint Simon.” is a new translation omitting everything recorded by that author only at secondhand. This plan makes it possible to reduce the three and a-half million words of the original to something like three-quarters of a million words. The editor is Mr Ralph Wright.

Our heritage of lyric poetry, so often considered to have started with Chaucer, is related in a curious way to the old monks, who would often fit rhyming English or Latin words to the religious music in which they had to take part. Latin was their Esperanto, and it was not exclusively used for expressing religious ideas. Miss Helen Waddell, whose book about the Middle Ages, entitled “ Wandering Scholars,” was one of last winter’s greatest book successes, has chosen and translated many of the best of these mediaeval Latin lyrics, and the book is to be published almost immediately.

If versatility is a virtue, Mr Shaw Desmond can claim a garland. He has written seven novels, he is a well-known journalist, he has toured America four times, giving lectures all the way along as he travelled, and even in his hobbies he loves variety —ju-jitsu, deep-sea fishing, and cricket all attract him. His book, “ Tales of the Little Sisters of St. Francis,” reveals still another side of his personality, for it is a book of fairyland, and its people arc banshees, merrows, leprechauns, with an occasional earthly tinker and poet.

It is with very great regret that we bad to postpone the publication of Mr A. E. Coppard's “Pink Furniture” until 1930 (says a paragraph in Now and Then), but it was impossible to get it ready sufficiently long before Christmas. It has, however, been suggested to us on many occasions that an insufficient number of books for children are .published in the early part of the year. We propose, therefore, to publish “ Pink Furniture ” about Easter of this year. After all, the children require reading matter in the spring just as much as in the autumn or winter. It is probable that we shall have another children's book ready for publication about the same time.

Mr R. H. Mottram has a new novel coming out entitled “Europa’s Beast.” It will be issued in a limited as well as an ordinary edition. Forthcoming fiction from the same publishers also includes “ Brief Candles,” a volume of short stories by Aldous Huxley; “Kindness in*a Corner,” a new novel by T. F. Powys; and “Down in the Valley,” a second novel of Suffolk by H. W. Freeman.

The first two volumes in the new Uniform Edition of the novels of Sinclair Lewis have already appeared. They are “ Babbitt ” and “ The Fob,” and the price is five shillings per volume. They are in size somewhat larger than “ The Traveller’s Library,” and in this respect

are uniform with the Collected Edition of the Works of Mary Webb. This latter series continues to increase in popularity, and impression after impression has to be printed to satisfy the demand. Already two sets of stereotype plates have been worn out and have had to be replaced.

Admirers of L. H. Myers’ “'1 he Orissers,” have been awaiting' his next book with keen expectation. “ The Near and the Far ” takes us to the Court of Akbar. The author’s aim is not so much a serious historical reconstruction of Akbar’s India as a psychological romance against the vivid background of the country. He is aware of the glory that is words and of the value of impressionistic landscape description, but his found objective is character, and he successfully establishes Hari amongst the persons of Akbar’s times— Akbar himself, his militant sons, the well-comprehended Gokal’ the Brahmin, Nita the Ranee, Georgian-born and Christian, Amar the Rajah, Juli the Child.

M. Andre Geraud, better known as “ Pertinax,” has a book coming out, entitled “Perfidious Albion?” The author, who once declared that he felt free to criticise England because he liked her so much, sets out in this volume to deal freely and intimately with the suspicion which the Frenchman is supposed to entertain with regard to the sincerity of the British character.

Tn a new volume of “ Essays and Studies,” edited by Sir Herbert \A arren, contributions include “ The Italian Element in English,” by Mario Praz; “Thomas Burney,” by 11. 0. White; “ A Characterisation of the English Mediaeval Romances,” by Dorothy Everett; “ The Reputation of Robert IJrowning,” by I). C. Somerville; and “ Some Kinds of Poetic Diction,” by Bernard Groom.

Among other limited editions to come forth are Marlowe's “ Tamburlaine,” illustrated by R. S. Sherriffs; an English translation of Beroalde de A erville’s Rabelaisian tales, under the title “ The Way to Succeed”; Dante’s “La A ita Nuova,” with Rossetti’s translation facing the text; “The Discovery of AVitchcraft,” by Reginald Scot, whose “ damnable opinions,” expressed in this sceptical work, roused the anger of James I; an illustrated edition of De Quincey’s “ Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts”; Cowley’s Essays; and the complete works of Swift.

An eminent critic was remarking the other day on the tremendous increase in popularity of the short story. H e said that whereas several years ago a book of short stories would sell in hundreds, today its sales may be reckoned in thousands. In connection with this it is interesting to note that A. E. Coppard, Liam O Flaherty, Daniel Corkery, H. E. Bates, Naomi Mitchison, and that hardy perennial, “ The Best Short Stories,” all come from the same publishing house. In the last number of “Now and Then,” apropos of a new and brilliant short story writer, Malachi Whitaker, Mr Edward Garnett protested ’against the general indifference towards the short story and literary sketch, and made an earnest plea for their acceptance as a distinctive form of art.

The literary lapses of celebrated authors (not Mr Stephen Leacock's, which were done on purpose) will form the basis of an amusing book now being planned for publication. The editors are Mr Charles Lee, the Cornish humorist and author of “ Our Little Town,” and Mr D. B. AVyndham Lewis, that widelyread host who entertained at the Sign of the Blue Moon. The book is nothing less than the long-awaited Anthology of Bad A’erse, and it is to be fully equipped with all the mock paraphernalia, dates, notes, references, which Mr AA’yndham Lewis knows so well how to supplv. Inelfld ed in it are to be seven cartoons by Mr Max Beerbohm, and the title will probablly be “ The Stuffed Owl ” —taken from the works of AA 7 illiam AA’ordsworth.

Apropos of the announcement that Sheila Kaye-Smith and her husband (the Rev. T. Penrose Fry) have been received into the Roman Catholic communion, the London Daily Express remarks: —

Miss Kaye-Smith follows the lead of many writers whose temperaments and achievements show’ an interesting variety. The Hon. Maurice Baring, one of the best living stylists, joined the Roman Church in 1909. In 1922 there was considerable comment when Mr G. K. Chesterton was announced as a convert. Father Ronald Knox, whose writings have won him a large public, became a Roman Catholic in 1917. Father Knox vas previously president of the Oxford Union, and devoted much time to theological study. During the war Mr Compton Mackenzie, whose novel “ Sinister Street ” was one of the great successes of the time, also was received as a convert.