RANDOM READINGS.

Waikato Independent, Volume XXIII, Issue 3007, 13 January 1923, Page 2

RANDOM READINGS.

SOT WORTH THE OFFER. u l was standing out id front oh» Bight,” said a theatrical manager, “when a ragged little urchin came along with a dog under his arm. The, deg was a mongrel of the dingiest variety I had ever seen. “ ‘Are you the manager of the show?' asked the boy. *‘l told him I was. 84 ‘Well,’ remarked the lad, ‘I was® to see tiie show, out i nan, ig, .ui money. I’ll tell you what I’ll do; 111 give you this dog if you’ll let me in.” “I.looked at the boy and then at the dog, and my heart melted. ‘You can go in,’ I said, ‘but never mind about giving me the dog; take it along with you.’ “The lad went in, with the mongrel under his arm. After the performance I was standing in front, and happened to see the urchin come out. “ ‘Well, sonny/ I remarked, ‘how did yon like the show?’ “ ‘Oh, pretty well,’ he said; ‘but I’m awfully glad I didn’t give you the dog/ ”

THE AUTHOR OF “EAST LYNNE.”

Airs. Henry Wood, the famous

novelist, was born at Worcester on January 17, 1814. She was the daughter of a glove manufacturer named Price, and her youth was spent in and about the city of her birth. Mrs. Wood had the gift of the storyspinner in a marked degree, and in picturing the life and atmosphere of a typical cathedral city or the ways of smugly complacent provincial people she wrote with the photographic accuracy and vividness of one absolutely familiar with her subject.

All her books have had an enormous vogue throughout the English-speak-ing world, and the official estimate of her total sales, exclusive of American and Continental iigures, which cannot even be estimated with any degree of accuracy, is put at nearly 5,750,000 copies. “East Lynne,” the most widely read of them all, has run into 980,000 copies, and in various stage versions has earned huge fortunes as an extraordinary popular melodrama. Mrs. Wood, however, had few, if any,' of the fruits of these dramatisation* of her best-known novel. A fortunate combination of circum stances suggested the writing of hei first long novel, “Danesburv House.” It was the vicar of Great Malvern who first mooted the idea to Mrs. Wood. This clergyman came to her one day, with a publication of the Scottish Temperance League in his hand. The League advertised a prize for a story showing the evils of intemperance, and he urged Mrs. Wood to compete, adding that, in his opinion, no one could write a more eloquent sermon on the subject than herself. Mrs. Wood hesitated for some time, but at last consented. Getting to work, she wrote “Danesbury House” in twenty-eight days, and the story was awarded the prize—one hundred pounds. Emboldened by success, Mrs. Wood, without loss of time, began the novel which became “East I.ynne.”

From a child the power and mystery of the law had posssssed a great charm for Mrs. Wood. To her knowledge of the law is, undoubtedly, to be attributed the realism of the incidents in the murder case upon which “East Lynne” turns.

In writing her most famous novel, Mrs. Wood worked deliberately and methodically. She first thought out her characters, motives, and action, and wrote them down in detail in several notebooks. She then divided hei material into chapters, apportioning one leading idea to each chapter. Then every chapter was carefully elaborated, and the conversation of the personages imagined. Te do this took three weeks of hard, close work; but not one word of the actual novel was yet written.

With her notebooks before her. Mrs. Wood then proceeded to write so many pages of MS. per day, seldom pausing for a word or expression, but going on, smoothly, easily, and without interruption or alteration to the <mbcl, which had been clearly foreseen before pen was put to paper. As usual, the author did not at first meet with encouragement from the publishers. Both Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., and Messrs. Chapman and Hall refused the book before Messrs. Bentley accepted it. The success of “East Lvnne” was phenomenal With rare timidity, Mrs. Wood went abroad to avoid the reviews; but at Dieppe, her first stop-ping-place, a “Daily News” was accidentally put into her hands. She turned the pages, and found a eulogistic notice of her book. Few papers found fault with “East Lynne”; very many praised it. Edition after edition was called for. The publishers’ stock was quickly exhausted, and the printers had to work night and day turning out new issues.