BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3994, 30 September 1930, Page 69

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

The publication of Lord Sands’s book on Scott’s early and luckless love affair, “ Sir Walter Scott’s Conge,” at the beginning of the year has elicited some further information concerning that romance. The new material has been incorporated in an additional chapter for a second edition of the work.

Lord Birkenhead has just passed the manuscript of a new book called “ Turning Points in History.” •It will contain 32 pages of illustrations in colour. Lord Birkenhead’s last book consisted of some daring scientific prophecies about the world and human life in the year 2030.

Miss Elizabeth Madox Roberts, who has written a new novel called “ The Great Meadow,” was born near Springfield, Kentucky, and still makes her home in that district. Before beginning her literary career—her first novel, “The Time of Man,” appeared in 192 G, and has since been published in German, Swedish, and Danish—she lived for some time in the Colorado Rockies, and from 1917-1921 she studied at the University of Chicago. In 1922 she published a book of poems entitled “ Under the Tree.”

“The English Scene: The Spirit of England in the Monuments of Her Social Life and Industrial History,” contains the series of illustrated articles which appeared in The Times last summer, dealing with the preservation of surviving monuments of our industrial history, together with seven additional chapters by the same author. The photographs are being reproduced in photogravure.

Professor Sir J. Arthur Thomson and Professor Patrick Geddes are the joint authors of a book called “Life: The Outlines of General Biology,” which will be published shortly. In addition to a comprehensive survey of the position reached by biology to-day, the two learned authors discuss the relation of biology to other intellectual activities and to human life in its ethical as well as its practical aspects.

“ The Life of Christopher Marlowe and the Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage,” by Professor C. F. Tucker Brooke—the first volume of the new edition of Marlowe under the general editorship of Professor R. 11. Case—is promised.

Mr G. D. H. Cole’s new book makes a mystery at least plainer to the ordinary man, but it is not this time a mystery concocted by his own ingenious mind—not, in fact, a crime story like his last book, “ Burglars in Bucks ” —but a contribution to the solution of the unemployment problem. “ Gold, Credit, and Employment,” is the title of the work, and in it Mr Cole discusses m language clear to all some of the com plex financial and commercial difficulties of England and the world. As the title shows, Mr Cole advocates a far-sightel policy for dealing with unemployment, hoping to find an economic cure rather than an uneconomic palliative.

The Cranach Press edition of “ Hamlet,” edited from the text of the Second Quarto by Dr J. Dover Wilson, illustrated by 80 wood engravings designed and cut by Edward Gordon Craig, and printed by Count Harry Kessler at the Cranach Press, Weimar. The edition will consist of 300 numbered copies on hand-made paper; 17 numbered copies on imperial Japanese paper, containing a set of loose proofs signed by the artist; eight numbered copies on vellum, containing three extra sets of loose proofs signed by the artist.

“ The Harvard Shelley Notebook ” has been reproduced in facsimile and will be published with notes and postscript by Dr G. E. Woodberry. The - volume, a vellum-bound book in which Shelley copied in his own hand certain of his poems to which he was particularly attached, belonged at one time to Claire Clairemont, who died in 1879 in Florence. Here she parted with it to Mr E. A. Silsbee, who first lent and finally gave the book to the Harvard Library. Although all the poem? are published pieces, there are certain variant readings in the selection.

Mrs Stella Court-Treatt, who has written a book, entiled “ Stampede,’ based on the well-known film of that name, is the wife of Major Court-Treatt. the famous big-game hunter. She has accompanied her husband on many of his expeditions, and has a wide knowledge of native life in Africa and elsewhere. Major Court-Treatt, too, is publishing a book called “Out of the Beaten Track,” dealing with parts of his adventurous life. * * *

Professor George M. Trevelyan’s book on “ England Under Queen Anne ” is accompanied by a book by his brilliant daughter, Miss Mary Caroline Trevelyan, who writes on “ William 111 and the Defence of Holland.” Miss Trevelyan is a great-grand-niece of Lord Macaulay. Her father was recently honoured by the

King with the Order of Merit, an honour already enjoyed by her grandfather, Sir George Otto Trevelyan.

Mr John Metcalfe, whose new novel, “ Arm’s Length,” was published recently, was born and educated in Norfolk. During the War he served in the Royal Naval Division and the Royal Naval Air Service. On demobilisation he became a schoolmaster, and devoted his spare time to writing. The success of his first book, a collection of short stories called “ The Smoking Leg,” enabled him to abandon teaching, and after travelling in Europe and North Africa he published his first novel, “ Spring Darkness.” His principal ambition is “to make enough money to buy a topsail schooner.”

Who can compare, for variety, with the record of Mr Arthur Croxton, who is writing his reminiscences (asks John o London’s Weekly). In his time he has been inventor and proprietor of “Printer’s Pie,” reorganiser and editor of the “ Tatler,” manager for the eleventh edition of the British Encyclopaedia,” and manager with Sir Oswald Stoll ol the London Coliseum. It is with his memories of the old Coliseum days that Mr Croxton spends most of his tiqre. His stage acquaintances during that period include Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry, Vesta Tilley (Lady de Frece), Charles Hawtrey, Arthur Bo.urchier Martin Harvey, the Chauve Souris, Grock, and all the glorious galaxy of the Diaghileff Ballet. There will he letters unpublished, and many new photographs and drawings. The title will be simply “ Mr Croxton Presents ”