FROM. . . Bookstall and Study.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18547, 22 August 1928, Page 5

FROM. . . Bookstall and Study.

Lunacharsky. the Commissar of Education in the Russian Soviet, is translating; all Anatole France's work into Russian for publication by the State. I>onn Byrne, who met with so tragic & death while motoring a short time ago, left behind him the M.S.S. of two novels. One of thorn is already in the printer’s hands. It has taken Mr Ernest Bramah no less than fourteen years to write his three famous “ Kai Lung ” books. Mr liilatre Belloc classes them among the great masterpieces of our time. Edward Michael relates in “ Tramps of a Scamp ” that before the Great War a Russian Grand Duke, who was •topping at the Grand Hotel, Paris, was so much annoyed by a waiter that he shot him. The manager, .the police, and a host of officials appeared on the scene. “ Why disturb me? " demanded the Grand Duke icily, “ if the man is dead, put him in the bill.” Thornton Wilder, author of “ The Bridge of San Luis Rev.” and Gene Tunney. the boxing champion, are going to Europe to undertake a walking tour together. a Lord Birkenhead’s biographer, who writes under the name of Ephesian, is at work in a biographical novel on Charles Dickens. It will be published under the title of “ This Side Idolatry.” Between the years 1898 and 1906, Anatole France was responsible for not less than forty-six speeches, orations, and letters. These have all been collected and translated by Mr J. Lewis May. The speeches were almost all read, as Anatole France was not a good impromptu speaker.

The Chelsea Book Club, London, is remarkable in that it specialises not only in selling those books alone which its directors can honestly recommend, but also in building up libraries for wealthy collectors. Otic of these libraries. of more than 2000 volumes, has just been completed for Mr Marshall Field, the Chicago millionaire.

A man once asked Thackeray to lend him five shillings, which he would convert into £20,000. Asked how, he ex plained to Thackeray that he knew a 3'oung lady with £20.000, who he knew would marry him if he asked her,, but he had pawned his teeth, and wanted five shillings to redeem them in order to propose effectively.

The latest “ portmanteau ” book is a volume entitled “ Great English Plays.” It will be edited by Mr H. F. Rubenstein, an authority on the drama, and will include, in some 1200 pages, no fewer than twenty-five plays—all unabridged—ranging from Heywood and Kyd to Oscar Wilde and Henry Arthur Jones. Shakespeare is excluded, but other authors whose work will provide •peamens for this survey of the drama include Marlowe. Dekker. Otway, Congreve, Oliver Goldsmith, and Sheridan.

Messrs Collins, the publishers, offered a prize of £250 for a competition as to the twelve most popular classic authors. Entries were received over a period of five months from all parts of the world. The result of the voting was as follows:—1 Dickens. 2 Scott, 3 Stevenson, 4 Dumas, 5 Thackeray, 6 Eliot, 7 Hugo. 8 Kingsley, 9 Austen, 10 C. Bronte, 11 Mrs Henry Wood, 12 Reade. The editor of the London “Sunday Express,” answering a critic who had asserted that Longfellow was no poet, declares that he was “the Henry Ford of poetry,” who reached all the people but “never wrote a line for the expert, the critic or the connoisseur.” Perhaps (comments the “Christian Science Monitor”) that is why Englishmen have accorded his name a place in Westminster Abbey—in “Poets' Corner.'* Many years ago, when William Dean Howells, the American critic, was asked what young author showed the greatest promise for American letters, he answered “W. B. Trites.” Despite this propbec\\ W. B. Trites is little known in England or in America. His seventh book, a short novel called “The Gipsj’,” was published by himself at Nice a year or two ago. Suddenly the book has been discovered in America, and it is being read from coast to coast.

In bis reminiscences of his father, Sir Henry Dickens refers to the “Life of Christ” which Charles Dickens wrote for his children. The manuscript is in the possession of Sir Ilenry Dickens, but his father impressed on the family that as It was not intended as a literary effort, it was never to be published to the world. Many efforts to obtain it have been made by American publishers and editor*. In all likelihood the manuscript, will find a resting-place at the British Museum. Dr Brown, biographer of Bunvan, claimed that the famous author was arrested in a farmhouse, but when the organising of the tercentenary celebrations arrived at it, the villagers claimed that the law laid hands on Bunvan in another spot, and placed a cart hoarding upon this spot, while a farmer approached the committee and declared a third spot authentic. Services were eventually held in a hollow oak, where Bunyan had preached, the manor house in which he was brought before the bench, and at the spot where the villagers gathered.

The original manuscript of “Alice in Wonderland” will not be tucked away on some dark library shelf. Dr Rosenbach, who bought the manuscript at Sotheby’s in London for £15.000. has resold it to “a famous American collector,” who has purchased the manuscript to display it to the public and give “Alice’s” admirers an opportunity ©f becoming acquainted with the forms in which their heroine’s adventures first appeared. The manuscript will be first placed on public display in the main entrance hall of the Philadelphia Free Library. After a short stay there it will travel to other parts of the country, and may even return to England for a visit. The manuscript is said to be insured for £55,000. a a At Sotheby’s a few weeks ago £BSOO was paid for a copy of the First Folio Shakespeare, 1623. Although it had a good impression of the Droeshout portrait, it wanted the leaf of verses by Ben Jonson and four other leaves in the body of the volume, and there were many other minor imperfections.- In other respects it was a sound and clean copy. It will be remembered that the Carysfort copy was bought by Quaritcb’s, in 1923, for £6100; this was gold last year privately to Mr A. Edward Newton, of Philadelphia, at #IO,OOO. Then, again, in 1922, the Burdett Coutts copy fetched £B6OO in the open market. Both these were not only perfect copies, but in extremely fine condition, and. judged by the price just paid, are now easily worth £20,000 The original published price for i ook was about £l—a considerable money three centuries ago.

Mr Ford Madox Ford, whose colossal conceit is notorious, in the course of a caustic review, in the “New \ ork Herald Tribune,” of Mr Christopher Morley’s latest book of essays, is unable to resist the opportunity of sneering at English literature. lie says:— “I remain the sworn foe of essays and the essayist— at any rate, of English essays and essayists. With the exception of Hazlitt’s description of a prizefight I have always regarded the writings of Charles Lamb . . . then Ilazlitt, de Quineey, R.L.S. and Thackeray in things like the ‘Roundabout Papers’ as the piffling, snuffling avoidance of all the real issues of life that, along with the journal called ‘Punch,’ is the worst burden Great Britain has cast ona groaning universe.” Unfortunately j for Mr Ford, who, by the way, saw fit to change his name during the war from Hueffer to Ford, his anti-British propaganda will react on him just as it lias on “Big Bill” Thompson, of Chicago. ♦ 5 Shelley, the poet, had a disregard of money that was astonishing. When it was proposed, by his father and grandfather, immediately to increase his allowance to a sum larger than his father’s, on condition that he would consent to entail the estate on his eldest son, or, in default of issue, on his brother, “Silly dotards,” he cries, “do they think I can be thus bribed and ground into an act of snch contemptible injustice and inutility? That I will forswear my principles in consideration of £2OOO a year? That the good-will I could thus purchase, or the ill-will I could thus overbear, would compensate me for the loss of selfesteem. of conscious rectitude?” He refused, poizit-blank, to entail “£120.000 of command over labour on one whom I know not—who might, instead of being the benefactor of mankind, be its bane, or use for the worst purpose! ”

Among the students and admirers of Dickens there is very often a curious hesitation to speak or write of him as a literary artist. Too frequently his humanity and love for his fellow-men are urged in apologetic way, as if Dickens needed justification. Apart from his great and generous heart, apart from his Jove for his fellow-men. and for his country, apart from his hatred of wrong and abuses, and cant and hypocrisy, apart from all these things, there arises the mighty genius of the man of letters. And when the last evil against which he made war has been reformed, when every aim and object of social well-being for which he worked has been realised, when all the abuses which he denounced appear like some half-forgotten nightmare of a dead and irrevocable past, shining brightly will still remain the literary genius of the man.—T. P. O’Connor.

We .ire tempted at tilfies to > thAk of Samuel Johnson and Boswell separable cronies who till the Johnson were parted from only by accident and for shor/ writes Mr Robert Lynd. It is to realise that the months they did not sec carh other more numerous than the which they were friendship, if we date its May. 1763. when they first more t.han twenty-one years, cording to the estimate of Dr Hill, all the pe.riods of time which they were living near each if added together, would to about two years, and on most in those two years they probably dm not see each other. Croker estimated that Boswell and Johnson speut two

hundred and seventy-six days together in all, and that Boswell met Johnson only one hundred and eighty times during his twelve visits to England in the period of their friendship. Boswell was unique among Johnson’s friends, not so much because of the closeness of his friendship as because of the glorious uses to which he turned it. It is as though in the present century an enthusiastic young inhabitant of New York who paid a dozen visits to England were to write the most intimate biography of the greatest living English writer, w’ho happened incidentally to be a man with a strong anti-American bias.

Mr Arthur Treadwell Walden, who was “a dog-puncher on the Yukon” in the roaring gold-rush days, has written a book which shatters some of the romantic illusions of the Klondyke days. His base was Circle City, of which he says: “Here was a town of four hundred inhabitants which had no taxes, courthouse, or gaol; no post office, church, schools, hotels or dog pound; no rules, regulations, or written laws: no sheriff, dentist, doctor, lawyer or priest. Here there was no murder, stealing, or dishonesty, and right was right, and wrong was wrong as each individual understood it. Here life, property and honour were safe; justice was swift and sure, and punishments were made to lit. the case. A duel w r as prevented by calling a meeting which voted that if the duel took place the victim would be buried and the victor hanged.” Weather recording was as simple as justice, according to Mr Walden’s veracious testimony, for “we had no thermometers in Circle City that would fit the case, until Jack M’Queen invented one of his own. This consisted of a set of vials fitted into a rack, one containing quicksilver, one the best whisky in the country, one kerosene, and one Perry Davis's pain-killer. These congealed in the order mentioned, and a man starting on'a journey started with a smile at frozen quicksilver, still went at whisky, hesitated at the kerosene, and dived back into his cabin when the pain-killex lay down.” a $s

Owing to the curious mind of woman, who is able to believe anything that is useful and to think anything useful that she believes, an idea, however uncomplimentary, becomes sacred to her as soon as the tentacles of her faith have fastened upon it, writes Miss Ellen Glasgow in the “New York Herald-Tribune.” Much practice, indeed, has perfected her in the fine art of dissembling. For the double

entendre is older than Mr James Branch Cabell. It is older, probably, than the famous conflict of the sexes which has been found so profitable in modern prose fiction. And woman, informed by some secret wisdom that there are four dimensions to sex but only three to sex relations, has judiciously embodied her discovery in a pragmatic philosophy. When she addressed man as “my author and disposer,” it was with an air of knowing more than she told, which, by pricking the instinct of curiosity, first established her as an influence 'and later exalted her as a literary inspiration. The myth of woman as an inspiration occupied an immovable pedestal from Richardson to Mr John Galsworthy. Not until it encountered all the sad young men and the Freudian perils of the post-war years was it overthrown and replaced by the bold modern myth of woman as an impediment. Between these two major legends a whole flock of minor myths has flitted as airily as the doves of Venus over the passive female principle in literature. From Richardson, who constructs a world of two solids and one ideal, to Mr Cabell, who weaves a fabulous territory of two illusions and one impediment, masculine inclination has varied, according to the quality of mind or the habit of body between these extreme and dominant creeds. If the myth of woman as an inspiration has already vanished, there is abundant vitality for several literary movements left in the companion myth of woman as an impediment. Until yet another reversal occurs in the oldest and most interesting of situations, we may cheerfully assume that an obstacle rather than an ideal will be the arresting feature of our novels. Dean Swift has very few supporters among literary men. Sir Walter Scott admired Swift but could not bring himself “to love him.” Dr Johnson, “forced to admit Swift into the company of poets, receives the famous man and takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the street.” Thackeray declared that Swift was incapable of friendship. “As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck—as strong a wing as ever beat, belonged to'Swift. I am glad, for one, that fate wrested the prey out of his claws, And cut his wings and chained him. One can gaze, and not without awe and pity, at the lonely eagle chained behind the bars.” * Shane Leslie, latest biographer, pictures him as a man of skull and no

soul. It would not be easy to say how much of Swift’s pessimism, and satire, and hatred was due to his life—the most unhappy man on earth. “He was always alone—alone and gnashing in the. darkness, except when Stella’s sweet smile came and shone upon him. When that went, silence and utter night closed over him. An immense genius; an awful downfall and ruin.” If voii would appreciate Swift think of him not as Thackeray thought, but as Professor Saintsbury, who summed up “Gulliver’s Travels” thus:— “It is the astonishing vigour and variety of Swift’s dealing with this public stuff that craves notice; and twenty times the space here available would be too little to do justice to j-hat. The versatility with which the yjeture of mankind is adjusted, to the Bfcferent meridians of the little people; Bte-w giants, the pedants, the unhappy Krbahs, and the horses —the dexterous : of ihe satirist’s lash with the tickling of the humorist—the prodigality of power and the economy of words and H^^Kfocorations —all these deserve the study, and the most carewill not in the least interbut will only enhance, the enjoyment of them.” HLrhc Key of Content “ by R. Scot--1 Liddell. Published by Cassell End Company, Limited. Copy from 'Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd., Cashel Street. t „ Besides writing “ Big Brother Bob and “ Fifty Thousand Miles of Sun,” the author of “ The Key of Content has achieved extraordinary success with his tale of Scottish village life. “ The Gilded Sign.” This latter work received extremely flattering praise from all quarters, and was certainly a novel of outstanding merit. “ The Key of Content ” is also a tale of Scot tish life and character, but this time the author chooses a farm as the setting for his story. Undoubtedly the author is most conversant with the farming portion of the community his first chapters with the description of the farm are sufficient proof of this —but it is his skilful character drawing wfiifch appeals most in this story The central figure is Famie, the farmhouse “ general ” and housekeeper, who brings up Alan C-aird, the orphan grandchild of old Robert Campbell and his wife. The hopes and fears, trials and jovs which are the reward of her task make a very appealing story, while there is always the background of farmlife with its changing yearly round and the determined battle against unfavourable conditions. Besides creating a wonderfully human and interesting character, Mr Liddell has given us a fine story told in a thoroughly artistic manner. Literary history furnishes numerous instances of the misadventures which have befallen MSS. ere they have ultimately found a publisher, says * John o’ London's Weekly.” Thackeray himself has told how his “ Vanity Fair ” was hawked about from publisher to publisher, and of its failure everywhere until Messrs Bradbury and Evans issued it in monthly numbers, and ended its wanderings for a long period. Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor ” underwent a similar experience, as did Carlyle’s “ Sartor ResarOn the other hand, many authors have adopted strange and secretive methods in bringing their writings before the public, and none more so than Swift, who was a master in this respect. His “ Tale of a Tub,” for instance, was introduced to the world with such cunning secrecy that the manuscript was actually thrown from a passing coach into the doorway of the bookseller who afterwards published it. “ Gulliver’s Travels ” was given to the public with similar secrecy. From one of Swift’s letters to Pope, as well as from another epistle to Dr T. Sheridan, it appears that during the time occupied in finishing, revising and transcribing his manuscript before publishing it, Tickell, then Secretary of

State, expressed a strong desire to see the work concerning which there was so much secrecy. But the Dean frankly replied that it would be quite impossible for Mr Tickell to find his “ treasury of waste-papers without searching through nine different Houses,” inasmuch as he had his MSS. conveyed from place to place through nine or ten different hands, and even then it would be necessary to send to him for a key to the work, else he would be unable to understand a word of it. In the end “ Gulliver ” came forth from his hiding place or places through the medium of Mr Charles Ford, who offered to carry the MS. to Mr Motte, the bookseller. A little over twenty years ago a firm of London publishers received the manuscript of a historical novel, without a title and without an author’s name. It was published under the title of " The MS. in a Red Box,” so called from the fact that it had been forwarded in a box of that colour, and it proved very successful; but who the author was was never made public. Defoe's “ Robinson Crusoe " was only taken up by Taylor—who purchased the manuscript, and netted one thousand pounds by the publication—after every bookseller in town had refused it. In a similar manner, one bookseller refused to give twenty-five pounds for the MS. of “Tom Jones”; while another who bought it cleared no less than eighteen thousand pounds for the venture during his lifetime,