LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 107, 11 June 1914, Page 5

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

The death of Mr Theodore WattsDunton, at the fine old age of eightytwo; removes a much venerated figure from the world of English letters. For many years he was prominent as a leading scribe, and contributed regularly to the "Athenasum," in the columns of which, and other journals, he published many beautiful sonnets. He was a personal friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and of Algernon' Charles Swinburne. With the latter he lived for many years at the Pines, a beauti-

THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON.

ful old Georgian house at Putney. Eossetti dedicated his "Ballad and Sonnets" to Watts-Dunton, as his "most intimate friend," and the critic was also a personal friend of Tennyson. In earlier life, Watts-Dunton took a great interest in gipsy lore. This led him, no doubt, to write much on George Borrow, to editions of whose Lavengro and '' The Eomany Eye'' he contributed introductions in which there is much curious information on the great George, of whom, in the later years of his life, the critic was an intimate friend. In 1898 Watts-Dunton published "poetic romance," called "Aylwin," in which there is perceptible a strong Borrovian influence. He was a frequent contributor to leading magazines and Reviews, and must have been a most industrious as well as being a most versatile writer.

Two or three weeks ago I devoted a column and a half of space to one of the earlier issues of "The Essex Library" (Stanley Paul and Co.), a new and quite important series of works —other than fiction —of outstanding merit and published at the very reasonable price (N.Z.) of six shillings. A more recent addition to the "Essex Library'' is entitled "Honore de Balzac—His Life and Writings," by Mary F. Sanders, a work which, when first published a year or two ago, in a much more expensive but in noways more attractive form, was the subject of many laudatory reviews not only in the British and American, but the French Press. Time was when Balzac's splendid achievement, "The Human Comedy"—the most brilliant series of novels ever published in any language—was but little known in England. To-day, not to be acquainted with at least a few of Balzac's masterpieces say, "Le Pere Goriot," "Cousine Bette," "L'lllustre Gaudissart," and "Eugene Grandet," just to mentioiij at hazard four only of Balzac's novels, is to admit a quite deplorable ignorance of influences which have meant so much in modern fiction, and not only French but English £c-

tion. Balzac always loses less in translation than does Dumas, for in mere literary style his novels are almost commonplace, and now that Messrs Dent and other publishers have issued good translations of his works, they are available to the still great. majority of English readers to whom a French novel, in its original form, is a closed book.

To read Balzac is good, either in French or English, but you will understand his books better and more adequately grasp his point of view on life, if you know something of his personality. Miss Sanders's book is therefore welcome. It traces Balzac's romantic career and tells afresh, with much comparatively new material, gathered from the recently translated "Lettres a I 'Etrangere,'' which the great French novelist wrote to his almost life-long friend, Madame Hanska, the beautiful and talented Polish lady whom he married in the last year of his life, but who, for so many years previously, had exercised an ' all dominant influence upon his literary work. Miss Sanders not only gives a more detailed and more accurate biography of Balzac than ever we have had before —and she is the last of a long series of writers on this brilliant but eccentric genius—but she analyses and criticises each of his works in a most interesting and valuably informative manner. Anyone who has. a few Balzacs on the shelves, and the best of Balzac should be represented in every public and private library worth calling a library, would do . well to place alongside the volumes a copy of Miss Sanders's excellent biography, a well printed, well illustrated and tastefully bound publication. Mr J. Herbert Slater, the well-known bibliographer, who edits that useful publication, "Book Prices Current," and gossips so agreeably every month in of "The Connoisseur" about notable book sales at Sotheby's, Christie's, H. Hodgson's, and other London auction rooms where collectors congregate to do battle with '' the trade" for the possession of rare and curious volumes, has compiled a '' Bibliography of the Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson" (G. Bell and Sons, per Whitcombe and Tombs). Mr Slater adopts >n, alphabetical in preference to the chronological order favoured as a rule by bibliographers. Prices of early Stevensons still rule high. For instance, if you possess a copy of ',' Familiar Studies of Men and Books," published by Chatto and Windus, in 1882, at 6/-, it is pleasant to note that the value to-day of the volume is three guineas. "An Inland Voyage," published, at first, by Kegan, Paul and Co. (1878), at 7/6 is valued by Mr Slater—if in the original "slate-coloured or blue cloth, lettered in gilt"—at from £9 to £lO. Curiously enough, at least so it will seem to those who do .not know the peculiar facts and fancies of the "collector" species, the same edition, bound in half-calf, is valued at two.guineas only. First editions, be it remembered, are only valuable if in their original covers. Clothe them ever so gorgeously in polished calf, Levant morocco, or the finest of vellum —and, behold, much of their value disappears. The collected editions of Stevenson, I notice, continue to rise steadily in value. "The Edinburgh" edition (28 vols.), published at 12/6 a volume, is now worth anything between £SO and £6O, and yet I can well remember a Wellington bookseller, now out of business, offering me a set for £l2. The "Pentland" edition (20 vols., at 10/-) is valued at £2O. A nice set, once be : longing to a well-known Wellington lawyer, last year in a Wellington auction room for £l4. The "Swanston" edition (the latest of the collected in 2 vols., at 6/- each, the publication of which was completed a year or so ago, is now worth, I see, £9 to £lO. Mr Slater's little book, which costs 3/- (New Zealand price), contains much curious and out of the way x information concerning Stevenson's works. It is the first of a series of similar handbooks for the use of book collectors, libraries, and other book folk.

Algernon Blackwood, the author of that curious but clever novel, "John Silence," and, later, of that singularly charming story, "A Prisoner in Fairyland," has had a greatly diversified career. Educated at a Moravian school in the Black Forest, he went to Canada when a young man of 20 and had a brief experience of farming. Next followed an equally brief experience as editor of a Methodist magazine, after which he started and lost money on a dairy farm, and then drifted to New York, where he was reduced to posing as a model. At last he got a berth as reporter on the New York "Evening Post," but the salary was so meagre that he and two other young Englishmen lived three in a room, cooking on a gas Btove and often eating nothing but dried apples and raw rice. Some adventures "Out West" followed, and then, after a new and happier experience of New York journalism, Mr Blackwood returned to England in 1878. It was not, however, until 1905, being then engaged in a "dried milk business," that he turned his attention to the writing of fiction. Angus Hamilton, the well-known war correspondent (a son-in-law of Pinero, the

playwright), was in Blackwood's chambers one night, got interested in one of his host's manuscripts (a ghost story), carried it off to a publisher, and a few months later a volume of similar stories was published. Then came "The Lis-. tener"'and "John Silence," and, later on, that curiously fascinating story, "Jumbo," which, by the way, was offered to fourteen different publishers before it was finally accepted. Since then Mr Blackwood's literary career has been one of almost uninterrupted success. Many of his stories have Switzerland as a background. In nearly all there is a strong suggestion of the supernatural. Cecil Rhodes was an omnivorous reader. In a recently published book, "Cecil Rhodes: The Man and His Work," Gordon le Sueur, at one time Rhodes's secretary, says that Rhodes was specially fond of history and biography. "Besides his favourite 'Gibbon,' 'Plutarch's Lives' were a source of never-ending pleasure.'' Bryce 's '' American Commonwealth,'' Milner 's "England in Egypt," and Mahan on the "Influence of Sea Powtfr" were read and re-read. He haM a few of Thackeray's works at Groote Schur, but did not care for Dickens. Asked whether he ever read Dickens, he replied that he was not interested in the class of people Dickens wrote about. Kipling, of course, was a great favourite with Rhodes.