Bookstall and Study.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18941, 11 December 1929, Page 3

Bookstall and Study.

FROM

Herr Remarque’s “All Quiet on Ihe Western Front” has been banned by the unanimous decision of the Northampton Free Librarv Committee. *s S 3 Only one new book was published ir Turkey in the last twelve months. It is suggested that Turkish authors are still struggling to master the new alphabet. More than 11,000 people visited the Stevenson Memorial House, 8. Howard Place, Edinburgh, during 1928, it was stated at the annual meeting of the Robert Louis Stevenson Club. a :: Miss Lettice Ulpha Cooper, whose book, “The Ship of Truth,” won a £IOOO prize in a religious novel competition, for which over 400 MSS. were submitted, has already published four historical romances. This, her first story of modern life, was written in five weeks. 55 23 23 Sylvia Lynd (the wife of Mr Robert Lynd, the essayist), has been elected president of the Femina Vie Heureuse and Northcliffe Prizes Committee, and Miss Ella Hepworth Dixon is vice president. The books for both the French and the English Prize will be selected by the end of November. 23 » 23 Edinburgh Corporation is considering a proposal to acquire an area at Swanston, Midlothian, the homeland Robert Louis Stevenson, as a public park. The scheme includes the farm at Swanston, immortalised in “St Ives,” and the hillsides of Caerketton and Allermuir, which R. L. S. describes as “the dear hills of home.” 23 23 23 Mrs Ethelreda Lewis, the “discoverer” of Aloysius Horn, has written a vigorous protest in American newspap ers against the imputation that the "Horn Books,” as they have come to be called, are not genuine. Mrs Lewi? says that when she reached her South African home recently it was to find the 49th application awaiting her to collaborate on some roamer’s autobiography. The elaborate pretence about “A Gentleman with a Duster” (surely one of the poorest of pseudonyms) was very odd (writes a contributor to "Everyman”). I was in America when the “Mirrors of Downing Street” came out. A well-known man of letters wrote to me saying that * Harold Begbie’s book was making a great hit. Its sale throughout the English-speak-ing world was enormous. None of us had any doubt at all as to the identity of the author. I never heard it denied or even questioned by anyone in literary London. I reviewed “Painted Windows” (a far better book than the “Mirrors”) as the work of Begbie, and St Loe Strachey insisted upon naming him. No one else did. The keeping up by the Press of the “closely guarded secret/’ as Begbie’s publisher quaintly calls it, is something that I find it difficult to explain. 23 23 23 There is an unflattering picture of Boswell in “Diaries of William Johnston Temple, 1780-1796.” edited by Mr Lewis Bettany:—B. irregular in his conduct and manners; selfish, indeli-, cate, thoughtless; no sensibility or feeling for others who have not his coarse and rustic strength and spirits. Very ill-judged to stay in Boswell’s house His life known to be very free, and he cannot conceal his love of wine. Did I not always find that distant journies

and London never answered with me? O the folly of leaving sweet, quiet home! . . . Boswell is a curious Genius. He is perpetually falling in love as he calls it; and then he can do nothing but talk of the Angelic Creature. In a man of more than 50 such behaviour is folly. Mr George Bernard Shaw seems to lead modern authors in prices paid for autographic material. He regards the fact as somewhat of a joke. Mr Archibald Henderson, of North Carolina, whose book, “Is Bernard Shaw a Dramatist?” was published by Mitchell Kennerley. recently received an annotated copy of his book from Mr Shaw himself, which Mr Shaw advised the recipient to sell to raise a dowrv for his daughter. As the • copy is unique, it would provide a substantial dowry if offered at auction. But Mr Henderson seems to prize it above money. The holograph manuscript of “Aipyornis Island.” twenty-three pages, which was published in the Christmas number of the “Pall Mall Budget,” in 1894, and for which Mr H. G Wells originally received five guineas, was sold at a benefit for the East End Hostels Association for £1162. Novelists have to be careful lest their writings be regarded as partly biographical. Mr Aben Kandel, author of “Black Sun,” writes to the “New York Times”:—“l should like to put at a halt certain rapidly spreading rumours that ‘Black Sun/ my new novel, is one of those intimate, flashlight confessions so much in vogue now Because I have been a newspaper man, and the Michael of ‘Black Sun’ is a newspaper man, and because . I spent, some time in Alaska, and there are a number of Alaskan episodes in the book, readers are taking for granted that all the rest of it is realistically true. They see me as Michael, and what is more distressing, see Louise as my wife. Since the publication of mv book, my wife has - received letters urging her to give me my freedom, and offering her impudent advice on how to run her life. Even intimate friends regard us wdth a new curiosity, and by strategic questioning, try to prod into what is ironically termed our ‘private life/ All this on the assumption that through all the years of our friendship, I have been in reality a very different person from what I appeared to be. I wish to deny emphatically that Michael and* I are identical, and what is altogether preposterous, that my wife was the model for the portrait of Louise.” Mrs Kandel has issued a statement to the same effect. 23 55 23 The latest war publication is “The Soldier’s War,” an anthology of what the compiler considers to be the finest prose literature about the war written in, or translated into, English The fourteen authors included (all of whom “waged or suffered war, not vicariously, but with their bodies”) are Henri Barbusse, Edmund Blunden, Roland Dorgeles, Ford Madox Ford, A. D. Gristwood, C. E. Montague. R. H. Mottram, “Mark V 11.,” Herbert Read, Edward Thompson, Fritz von Unruh, F. A. Voigt, Francis Brett Young, and Arnold Zweig. The frontispiece of the book has been designed by Mr Eric 1 Kennington. Another war book to be issued this season which ought to create considerable interest is “Three Personal Records of the War/’ This has been written by Mr R. H. Mottram, the author of “The Spanish Farm Trilogy”;

Mr John Easton, the author of “Dog Face” -1 “Matbeson Fever”; and Mr Eric Partridge, the author of “Robert Eyres Landor, A Biography.” Mr Mottram and Mr Easton were officers in infantry battalions of the 8.E.F., and Mr Partridge was a private in an Australian infantry battalion. In the days of Sir Walter Scott, when the historical novel was in its prime, it was the attitude of the author to exploit his imaginary characters against an historical background, borrowing from reality, but removing them at the same time from all actual truthfulness to life. In later days, Stanley Weyman did the same thing. There was an intention amongst writers of that period to make their readers forget, to transport them to realms that did not exist in reality, to seduce them from the legibility of fact. Then the wind was blowing from the South. Now the weathercock of our mmds ha*; nearly boxed the compass. We have an insatiable desire, not to escape from this business of living as used to have, but to know what it really means. We do not want the historical heroes and heroines of Sir Walter Scott or of Stanley Weyman. We are content to see our heroes and heroines of history lifted down from their high places if only, in closer contact with the facts, we can learn the truth from their experience.—E. Temple Thurston. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find new and striking titles for books of reminiscences; and, therefore it is hardly surprising that Mr Alfred E. Smith (who was defeated by Mr Hoover for the Presidency of the United States) and Mr Martin Shaw composer of operas, should have chosen the same title—“Up to Now.” The books were in the press at the same time—Mr Smith’s in New York Mr Shaw’s in London. Mr Shaw tells a good story of Viscount Grey of Falloden and another. At an international

conference Lord Grey found himself one day seated next to a polite gentleman from a country in Eastern Europe, which may be called BashiBajouka. While Lord Grey was speaking, he had his watch on the table in front of him. At the end of the meeting he found that his watch had disappeared. Wishing to avoid a scandal, he consulted the representative of another small Balkan State. “Oh, yes,” said the diplomat, “leave it to me. I will see him and call at your hotel with the missing article this afternoon.” He was as good as his word, and on arriving was shown into Lord Grey’s room, where he took the watch from his pocket, saying as he did so, “I called on M. (the BashiBajoukian) and aranged the little matter without the least unpleasantness: and here, as you see. is your watch.” Lord Grey thanked him warmly and said, “But did he say nothing in explanation of his conduct ?” “Not a [word/* “But surely, that is most ex ! traordinary ? ” “Oh, no. You see, he does not know that I have got it! ” “Hockey for Women,” by Marjorie Pollard. Published by Hutchinson and Co., London. Written by an English hockey repre tentative, “Hockey for Women” is a book containing a great deal of useful advice on the scientific playing of hockey. There are excellent chapters on the Drive, the Push Stroke, Stopping the Ball, and Tackling, Though written primarily for girls, the book is also likely to be of help to men players. There is a very entertaining chap ter on Reminiscences, a paragraph recording that the author first played hockey for her school, as goalkeeper, because “no one else’s Mother would let them play in goal, and ‘Marjorie Pollard, who could dodge a ball all right/ might as well go/’ 23 23 23