LITERARY GOSSIP.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14842, 6 December 1913, Page 9

LITERARY GOSSIP.

Among tho late Charles Brookfield's friends was Robert Louis Stevenson, and he has given a picture of the novelist's appearance on their first meeting at the Savile Club. "His hair was and parted in £ho middle, and fell below the collar of his coat; ho wore a black flannel shirt, with a curious knitted tie twisted in a knot; had Wellington boots, rather tight dark trousers, a pea-jacket and a white sombrero nat. But the most astounding item of all his costume was a lady's eealskin cape, which ho wore about hie shoulders, fastened at the neck by a fancy brooch, which also held together a bunch of half a dozen daffodils. 1 think these final touches to his toilet must have been added by loving hands without his knowledge or consent."

One of the principal topics of conversation at a meeting oi the Library Assistants' Association in London recently was the great diversity of literary tastes in difttarent localities. Statements given to & "Daily Mail" representative ,l>y London librarians and their assistants show that while- Hampstead cherishes lofty literary ideals, tho people simply clamouring for the classics and almost ignoring humorous books and sex novels, Hackney revels in humorous writers like Mr W. W. Jacobs and also in sentimental novels and the adventurous works of Mr Eider Haggard. Houthwark, a typical working-mane district, rivals Hampstead in ita desire for high-<lass literature, giving first place to biographies of great men; travel books are popular, and poetry is well readj Swinburne being one of Southwark's favourites. The demand for sociological books is also insistent. Bermondsey likes best real life drama and Dolitics, and the favourite literature is the newspaper. Tho Willesden Green women adore Mr Charles Garvice's books and romantic love stories.

In these days of over-population in fiction it seems increasingly difficult to! find enough titles to go round (remarks Mr" "W. P. James in the "Evening Standard"). Still, there must be many unused titles, one would euppose, in the tentative lists of Dickens and Stevenson, who both had a great fancy for playing with titles. Dickens used to say that until ho had fixed upon his title he could not get seriously to work. Readers of Forster's Life will remember his preliminary troubles over '"Tie Chimes" and "David Copperfield. It should make our over-driven novelists' mouths water to think that Victor Hugo and the French romanticists had so little trouble about titles rthat they used in their early days to advertise Jists of titles b? forthcoming books, most of which never got beyond the titles, just to give themselves airs of established authorship, and to attract attention.

A man who was lured from the British Army by some vegetables in a window, is the wellknown author, Horace Annesley Vachell. Vachell was educated at Harrow, and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He became a lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade in 1883. In 1882, however, he visited America, and after a big game trip into the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, travelled on to the Pacific- Slope, fishing and shooting. By the odd luck of things, some immense vegetables exposed as an advertisement in a shop window in San Francisco challenged his attention. They had been grown in San Luis Obispo County. Mr Vachell bought a ticket for San Luia Obispo, the old Mission town, and paid it* a visit. Within, a few weeks he had bought a tract of land near Arrowo Grande. Hs first venture was to plant Early Rose potatoes upon ground for wheh he had paid 5 dollars an acre. The' net pTofit from the sale of these potatoes averaged over 100 dollars per acre.

Mr Vachell then bought more land, and ultimately resigned his commission in the British Army when it came to him a year later. His next purchase was a cattle ranch, which he still owns. His brothers joined him and several other Englishmen. They started polo in 1882, presumably the first polo played west of I the Rockies. In 1895 Mr Vachell returned to England,.and since then ho has resided in the New Forest. He began to write about the time of the dry years,, in '93 and '94, when time hung on his hands. His first novel, "Theßomaneeof Judge Ketchum," was published in England and America in 1895. Since then he has written over 20 novels and produced two successful plays, "Her Son" and "Jelfs." His first big success was with the novel. "Brothers," which has run through 25 bis editions. This was followed by "The Hill," a story of Harrow, which has attained its 21st edition in England alone.