FROM BOOKSTALL & STUDY

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 708, 8 March 1933, Page 5

FROM BOOKSTALL & STUDY

j In response to a request to name j three books that have greatly influ- j j enced him, the British Prime Minister j i (Mr Ramsay MacDonald) mentions j ! Hugh Miller’s “ My Schools and School- j j masters,” Carlyle’s “ Sartor Resartus,” i ! and the poems of Burns. j There is a note of the great British j j tradition of Arctic chronicle in the | j diary kept by # Mr F. Spencer Chapman, j { and quoted in his “Northern Lights: j ; The Official Account of the British i j Arctic Air Route Expedition. 1930-31.” ■ | Mr Chapman’s party had landed and j struggled on through blizzards for a j rendezvous on the Ice Cap, which they j reached just in time, and with only one day’s dog ration left. The diary reads:— Nov. 24.—Sixty-eight degrees of frost in night. Ears, nose and fingers frostbitten to-day. Sleds go over all day with monotonous regularity. Tiss (a bitch in Courtauld’s team) had a puppy when we stopped for lunch. Dreng j (the father) licked the snow off it. We relentlessly fed it to another team, and the same had to be done with three other puppies which appeared in turn each time we stopped. Yet the bitch pulled well between each. . . Nov. 26.—Lay up. Read “ Cvmbeline,” then started “ Forsyte Saga.” Sledges falling to bits; what can we do? Dogs prowling round tent all evening. Dec. 3.—We walked out in different directions and I found the Station a hundred yards to the left. It was 8 p.m., four hours after sunset. The others would hardly believe me at first. Then we walked into the yard and down the tunnel shouting, “ Even- j ing Standard! Evening Standard.”! ; When we stood at the end of the tunnel j l and showed our faces they were so | | covered with ice that Bingham and 1 D’Aeth could not recognise u_s. , •]

Mr Bernard Shaw, when asked what were the twelve greatest works of fiction, supplied the following list, together with a characteristic postscript: “1, ‘Don Quixote’: 2, ‘Robinson Crusoe’; 3, ‘Tom Jones’; 4, ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’; 5, ‘ Manon Les-caut6-7, ‘ Ivanhoe ’ and ‘Rob Roy’; 8. ‘Little Dorrit '; 9, ‘Candide’; 10, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’; 11, ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress ’; 12, ‘ Les Miserables ’: 13, ‘ The Arabian Nights.’ There you have a baker’s dozen, all in the running for the greatest twelve: but you will easily get another twelve just as eligible. German and Russian lists, for example! Come off it.” To a similar request. Mr H. G. Wells replied: "I never believe in putting books into class lists and saying which is greater and which is less. It is like asking which is the greater work of Nature, the shrew-mouse or the elephant, the cedar tree or the violet. Most fiction does not exist. All that does exist in incomparable.” The first and last verses of a poem, “ The Native Star,” by the late Mr John Galsorthy, in the “Spectator”:— I have sailed South to a new light, New stars, and seen the Plough Dip to the Cross, and watched the bright Fish spraying from the prow. Lagoons and palmgroves I have spied, And loom of mangrove tree; Yet craved for a salt heaven wide

Above the English sea. Why this should be, I cannot tell. Of man it seems decreed That he shall feel the moving spell Of his especial breed. Muezzin call by night and morn: Brothers, or near or far, Be not dismayed that each is born Under his native star I”

A masked burglar who broke into a house in Glasgow and held up two women observed on the wall a picture of Bernard Shaw. lie tied the women to chairs, and then talked to them about Bernard Shaw plays while his companion robbed the house. A number of books and manuscripts of Lewis Carroll fetched over £IOOO in London recently; £370 was paid for “ The Rectory Magazine,” an unpubj iished MS. of 116 pages written by young Dodgson at the age of eighteen.. ! A picture book, written and drawn by him when only nine years old, was j sold for £42, and three of his pen-and--1 ink sketches f6r ** Sylvie and Bruno ”. | for £72. At the same sale a copy of Charles Kingsley’s “ Water Babies ’ (1863), inscribed to his wife, realised £llß. The MS. of Mr Kipling’s “Our Lady of the Snows,” first published in 1897, went for £9O: Only four mourners attended the funeral at Richmond (Surrey) Cemetery of Mr Alfred Judd, the novelist, whose books are known to readers in all parts of the world. He died a few weeks ago in the Richmond Poor Law Institution, aged 50 years. A prolific writer, he had for many years published at least one or more books a year, and had contributed extensively to magazines and annuals. Among his books which appeal chiefly to young readers are, “ In Quest of Peril,” “ The Conquest of the Poles,” “ The Young Treasure Hunters,” and “ The Isle of Adventure.” :: :: Mr Sydney Horler. popular novelist, has disclosed for the benefit of literary aspirants, his income from his pen in 1930. The total was £4835, made up as, follows:—Continental serial sales. £105; Continental book sales. £44; United States of America serial sales. £369; United States of America new book advances, £561; United States of America royalties on previous books. £67; British serial sales, £1758; British book sales. £1110; and British, royalties on earlier books. £B2l. These details are given by Mr Horler in his book, a manual of advice on “ Writing for Money ”