STRAY LEAVES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20105, 11 May 1935, Page 12

STRAY LEAVES

DOINGS IN WORLD OF BOOKS “Seven Gothic Tales,” by Isak Dinesen, is being translated by the author —her real name is Baroness Blixen—into Danish, her native tongue. The book will later appear in Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. It is said that Miss Mary Butts in “Scenes from the Life of Cleopatra,” attempts once and for all to give Cleopatra her just character and to deny the slanderous reputation put upon her by general consent and Ignorance. The lighter side of soldiering finds place in Colonel Montague Cooke’s book “Clouds That Flee.” For part of the Great War the author was in Palestine. One day General Allenby, who had issued an order prohibiting the wearing of “shorts” when mounted, saw a huge Anzae stripped to the waist, and in “shorts,” riding his horse to water. At the chief’s order the trooper was promptly stopped by one of his own officers, a little perky fellow

. . . He was roundly told off, with the Commander-in-Chief in his car nearby, for having “shorts” on when mounted. The big Anzac, however, was completely unmoved by his “telling-off,” and, stripping his only garment before the astonished officers, politely handed his “shorts” to the little officer, saying; “Very well, then, take the ———- things.” Then, naked as he was born, except for a pair of shoes, he leapt on to his horse and rode on.

During the Boer War, Mr James Barnes, the author of “From Then Till Now,” was a newspaper correspondent. At the Battle of Magersfontein, he tells us in his book, he noticed a non-commissioned officer in charge of some stretchers carrying in his hand a long white ostrich feather which could have been seen a mile. One of the shells from the Boer gun fell but a few yards away; as it struck, the man with the plume fell forward on his face. “Pick that poor fellow up,” an officer shouted. But no one had been hurt. Out of the dust rose the supposedly wounded one. It was Edgar Wallace—before long one of the most prolific short-story writers and playwrights and sporting journalists known to the English reading public.

Among other centenaries of interest to the publishing world which occur in 1935, perhaps that of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (“Mark Twain”), is outstanding. Mark Twain the writer was successful—but as the publisher he met with disaster, although, like Sir Walter Scott, he repaid his creditors in full. He became virtually owner of the publishing house of Webster and Company—and its fall in 1894 involved him in ruin. Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835. Colenso (brother of the famous Bishop of Natal) published In 1835 the first book to appear in New Zealand. A noteworthy bicentenary of 1935 Is that of the birth (September 28, 1735), of William Julius Mickle, the poet, author, of “There’s Nae Luck About the House” and “Cumnor Hall.” Mickle was corrector to the Clarendon Press. Robert Dodsley opened a bookseller’s shop in Pall Mall in 1735. Dodsley was also a dramatist, and his “Toy Shop” was successfully produced at Covent Garden that same year.