LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 137, 16 July 1914, Page 5

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

"Potash and Perlmutter.'' It is seldom indeed that a hardened reviewer deliberately sets out to buy a novel. Novels, alas, pour in upon the critic in such numbers as, at times, almost to snow him under. But the other day "Liber" went forth in cold blood and purchased two novels —they are rather collections of connected short stories—entitled respectively "Potash and Perlmutter" and "Abe and Mawrus." The author is Montague Glass, an American playwright and novelist. The two books deal with Jewish life in New York. There are, I believe I have read somewhere, a good half-million Jews in New York. It is no place for an anti-Semite, such as Mr Hilaire Belloe for instance. These two books by Mr Glass are founded on plays which have had a tremendous vogue in New York. They are intensely funny productions, dealing as they do with the commercial and social experiences and adventures of two hustling Hebrews — true "Yids," —who are engaged in the ready-made cloak and suit trade. Not since the late O. Henry gave us his riotously funny pictures of life in "Bagdad on the . Hudson" have I laughed more heartily over an American book than I have done-"oyer "Potash and Perlmutter "—Abe Potash an& Maurice, or "Mawrus," Perlmutter. The dialect, a compound of Yiddish and American slang, may at first sight be a little baffling, but when you reach an awkward sentence read it out aloud and you at once get the swing, spirit, and sense of it. Abe is speculatively inclined; his partner, Mawrus, cynically doubtful of his specs. Each is a character one rarely meets in current fiction. And there - are subsidiary characters almost equally amusing, notably Mr "Philip Noblestone" (formerly Pesach Edelstein) and the Jewish lawyer, Feder, who cleverly trades upon the ignorance of his clients by adorning his advice with tags "of most extraordinary Latin. These two books are worth making acquaintance with, being full of general satire, genuine humour, and replete with shrewd observation of human nature. By all means sample them. The Native Tribes of the Northern Territory. All who are interested in Australian ethnology and anthropology, and who remember those wonderful books on the natives of Central and Southern Australia, which were written bjl Professor Baldwin Spencer, Professor of Biology at Melbourne University, and the late F. T. Gillen, will be glad to know that 1 Dr Spencer is to add yet another volume to his valuable studies of primitive races. This time he will deal with the "native tribes of the Northern Territory of Australia." In this much-dis-cussed, but still comparatively little known region there are (says Dr Spencer), "still great areas, as in Arafura Land, where practically no white man has been —at all events there is no settlement —and here is abundance of native food, and the tribes wander unhampered in their native state." As with the former books by this author, a special feature will be made, of the illustrations, reproduced from original photographs by the author. Macmiilans will publish the book. Two Books for Shakespeareans.

f Two new books make special appeal to all who are interested in Shakespeare and the Shakespeare land of Warwickshire. One is "Highways and Byways in Shakespeare's Country," by Archdeacon Hutton, with illustrations by that clever black and white artist, Mr E. H. New. The volume is a recent addition to Macmillan's excellent "Highways and xsyways" series. The other book is by Mr William Dean Howells, the veteran American litterateur, and takes the form of a fantasy. Mr Howells tells how, at Cheltenham, whilst enjoying an open-air performance of "A Midsummer. Night's Dream," he is accosted by two strangers, whose nicely tailored '' lounge suits'' mysteriously flower out into slashed doublet a'nd trunk hose. The two immortals, none other, if you please, than the Bard of Avon and Lord St. Albans, accompany the American visitor to Stratford, where they act alternately as c.icerones and expositors of knowledge Shakespearean. Shakespeare, or his shade, is good enough to inform Mr Howells as to his precise relations with Anne. As to Bacon, Mr Howells is rather severe upon that hero of his countrywoman, the-famous Mrs Gallup, for he describes "My Lord of St. Albans" as "the basest lickspittle to that old harridan, Elizabeth, and that slobbering pedant, James." Judging by the reviewer, the "Westminster Gazette" (June 6), Mr Howells's book, the title of which is '' The Seen and the Unseen at Stnatford-on-Av.on" (Harper's), must be a very amusing production. Another Baconian Craze. Oh, those Baconians! There is no end to their powers of imagination. I read in the "Spectator" (May 30) a short review of a new book (a costly book, Constable's, 16/-) by Mr E. G. Harman, the title of which is '' Edmund Spencer and the Impersonations of Francis Bacon," According to Mr Harman, Bacon was the '' real author of the works commonly attributed to Spencer. '' Not to speak,'' as the ' * Spectator'' »eviewer adds, '' of such trifles as Sidney's ' Apologie for Poetrie,' Gilbert's 'Discourse,' and Raleigh's 'Discovery of Guiana,' " Mr Harman even assures his readers that Raleigh sat as the model for Othello! Upon this, the "Spectator" reviewer caustically comments: '' Anyone who can believe that the same man wrote ' Hamlet' and 'The Faery Queene' must be, like Habbakuk, capable de tout. So we shall not argue with Mr Harman—but merely ask him whether it would not be a simpler explanation of certain coincidences of thought and style tO' suppose that Bacon hired Shakespeare or Spencer to write the 'Essays' and 'The Advancement of Learning.' '' Neatly put!

Arnold Bennett Busy. Arnold Bennett's new novel, "The Price of Love," which has been running as a serial, will be out very shortly in volume form. Mr Bennett haß also commenced a series of papers descriptive of a yachting tour in Holland, in the "Century Magazine." But when are we to have the Jong-awaited concluding volume of that famous "Five Towns" trilogy, the first two yglumes of which were

"Clayhanger " and " Hilda Lessways"? The more "Five Towns" stories Mr Bennett gives us, the better liis numerous admirers will be pleased.

Ouida and W. L. George. In the June "Bookman," Walter Sichel has an article on Ouida, upon whose curious but interesting personality much new light has been thrown by Elizabeth Lee's recently published i 1 Memoir.'' Some hitherto unpublished portraits of the once famous novelist accompany the article, together with a facsimile of a letter sent by Ouida to her publisher, J. Fisher Unwin. The letter reads as follows: —."My dear sir, — Pray do not bracket any books qf mine with others thus. My works are something more than novels of a season. If not, I have lived in vain. Sincerely yours, Ouida,'' In the '' Bookman Gallery'' the subject this month is that rising young novelist, W. L. George, whose "Bed of Roses" was a success de scandale, but who has since made good with his "Israel Kalisch" and the quite recently published '' Making of an Englishman," already, so I notice, in its third edition. Born in Paris, of English stock, Mr George was, it appears, educated with a view to becoming an engineer. He served his term in the French Army, as did Mr Hilaire Belloe, and then came to London, where he varied commercial pursuits by acting as London correspondent for "lie Voltaire" and other Parisian papers. Bafael Sabatini. Another young writer, Mr Rafael Sabatini, whose strikingly original study of Cesare Borgia was recently reviewed in this journal, makes an appearance in the "Bookman Gallery." Mr Sabatini is an Italian by birth, which accounts, no doubt, for so many of his novels having an Italian scenario. Other articles in the June "Bookman" deal with the literary career of the late S. R. Crockett, "Some New Interpreters of Dante" (by Canon Barry), and other interesting literary topics. illustrations include a new full-page portrait of Thomas Hardy and a similar portrait of Ouida. Altogether an excellent number. A Norwegian Masterpiece. "The Nation," the reviews in which are, as Mrs Gamp said of the»drinks — *' all good,'' warmly commends to the notice of its readers an English translation of a Norwegian novel, "Shallow Soil," just published in London. The reviewer, who styles the novel as "a Norwegian masterpiece," says "Shallow Spil" is "a cool, trenchant attack on the fetish of ' literary genius,' on the affectation, superciliousness, and insincerity of the 'intellectual life,' on the pretensions of cliques of young poets, artists and thinkers in Christiania, to rank above the ablest business man or the most talented professional." Judging by the "Nation's" review the book is one of the best novels of Norwegian life that has yet been published. Knut Hamsun's novels are,,says the reviewer, treasured all over the continent of Europe, and are extremely popular in Russia. England is, apparently, the last country to be made aware of their existence. Conan Doyle and Plagiarism.

Conan Doyle hfis been accused of plagiarism by a well-known French novelist, M. J. .H. Rosny, sen., who asserted recently, in a Parisian journal, that there are unwarranted similarities in the English author's book "The Poison Belt," and the earlier chapters of M. Rosny's story "The Mysterious Force." Conan Doyle, however, clearly rebuts the charge of plagiarism by pointing out that the first chapters of '' The Poison Belt'' were written almost a year before the story began to appear in the '' Strand Magazine,'' and that it would have been impossible for him to convey any of M. Rosny's ideas. The English novelist is supported by the testimony of Mr Watt, the well-known literary agent, who states that the manuscript of 11 The Poison Belt'' was in his possession six months before the novel began to appear in the "Strand." Stray Leaves.

Amongst forthcoming new novels which ought soon to be on sale in the New Zealand bookshops ar§ "The Quick and the Dead," by Edwin Pugh (Bell), '' The Double Four,'' by Oppenheim (Cassell), "Desmond O'Connor," by j George M. Joseph (Long), "The Man with the Double Heart,'' by Muriel Hine, author of ' ' April P&nhasa'rd" (Lane), "The Island," by Elener Mordaunt (Heineman), "The Road to' Hillsbrow," by Ellen Beaumont Loveday (Chapman), "The Tale of Lai," by Raymond Paton (Chapman), "Captain Dan's Daughter," by Joseph C. Lincoln (Appletons). All these are well reviewed 'by recent English papers. The first cheap edition (2/-) of Olive Schreiner's "Woman and Labour" has just been published by Fisher IJnwin. George A. Birmingham (Canon Hannay), whose many excellent Irish stories have been so popular with New Zealand as well as with English readers, was in Ameriea last year on a lecturing tour. He now produces the inevitable book of ' 1 impressions.'' The title is '' from Connaught to Chicago."

Frederick Niven always writes an original book, and his new story of modern Glasgow life, manufacturing and art being specially dealt with, should be worth reading. The title is "The Justice of the Peace." Mr Niven, it may be remembered, was the author of that striking story of Edinburgh life, "Ellen Adair,'' published last year. All admirers of Charles Reade, whose '' Cloister and the Hearth,'' is perhaps the finest English historical novel, save "Esmond," ever written by an Englishman, should make a point of buying the "Times Literary Supplement" for June 4, which contains a long and exceptionally interesting article on Reade and his novels. Maeterlinck has a small but enthusiastic band of admirers in New Zealand, who will welcome the announcement that Methuen's will shortly publish a new A-olume of essays by the famous Belgian, translated by Teixira de Mattos, under the title of "The Unknown Guest.'' The essays are chiefly concerned, so I read, with such occult matters as ghosts, haunted houses, our knowledge of the future, premonitions, and "psychometry." Lewis Melville, that industrious biographer, to whom we owe, amongst other notable works, an excellent '' Life of Thackeray,»' is busying himself with the preparation of- a definite edition of the correspondence of Edmund Burke. Years ago, Mr Birrell in one of his delightful essays, said that every English parliamentarian who "aspired to fame" should "steep himself in Burke," and Burke's letters, are, like those of Dr Johnson, almost as worthy of study as the author's published works.