LITERARY LETTER FROM LONDON.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14969, 16 May 1914, Page 12

LITERARY LETTER FROM LONDON.

(feom a correspondent.) I/ONDOX, April 1. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's new "Sherlock Holmes" serial starts running, it is likely to have no more interested reader than H. B. Irving, the elder of the lato Sir Henry Irving'e two famous sons. For there is no keener criminologist in all England than "Harry" Irving, who, by the bye. after a brief aud ribt wholly satisfactory venture in management at the Savoy, following his recent tour in South Africa, is now appearing, for the first timo, in vaudeville, or "on the halls,'as they say hero, liis vehicle being a little Grand Guignol play called "The Vandyke." Seldom is there a great criminal trial held in Britain without tho presence of the elder Irving, whose knowledge'of the history of crime, too, is as extensive as voracious reading and the possession of a really wonaerful library -of works on >he subject can make it. Ho himself has written on the subject extensively and authoritatively, one of his volumes dealing with "French Criminals of the Nineteenth. Century," another with "The Trial of Franz Muller," and a third with the life of Judge Jeffreys. Now, it seems, lie is hard at work on another crime book, and in connexion therewith ho made a trip down into the dingy purlieus of Whitechapel, a few .days ago, having as his guide his fellow author, W. Pott Ridge, than whom no one knows this delectable district better, and who invariably gives his favourite recreations as "wandering East of Aldgate and South,"

Not least interesting, by a long way, of England's many "grand old men," is one who recently retired from the publishing trade, after something like half a century's activity therein, and who has just colebrated his ninetieth birthday. This is Edward Marston, formerly head of the famous London house "'of Sampson Low, Marston and Co., who has twenty living grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, and whose history links up several ages and schools of English writers, from Macaulay to Kipling. A wonderful acquaintance ho has had among them, truly! It is doubtful if any other living man can boast of having met and known, in most cases intimately, the following gallery of well-known writers:—Macaulay, Victor Hugo, Bulwer Lytton, Oliver Wendell Holmes, J. A. Froude, Sir Edwin Arnold, Mis Beocher Stowe, William Black, W. Clark Russell, Sir Morell Mackenzie, George Mac Donald, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens. Charles Reade, Wilkie Collins, R. D. Blackmore, John Bright, H. M. Stanley, "Walter Bosant, Jean Ingelow, and J. R. Lowell.

Victor Hugo, according to Marston, was "an autocrat," to whom publishers had to. go hat in hand and tako what the "god" gave them without seeing manuscripts, or buying anything except the author's assurance. Charles Keade was an excellent business man. Ho lived up to_ the title of "Hard Cash" in negotiating for the. publication of that work; and in the end printed it himself, finding out from Sampson Low and Marston the lowest cost of paper and driving a good bargain with the printers. Thomas Hardy is among Marston's best friends. After holding the market firmly for yeara, the grip of the novelist of Wessex began to relax and ho entered the field of realism with all his strength. But apparently doubting whether Sampson Low and Mareton, who had long published his works, would risk "Tess of the d Urbervilles," he went elsewhere with great success. Afterwards ho wrote Mr Marston a charming letter In which he ended by. saying,. "I hope that the situation which has arisen, as if it were by accident, may not interfere with our oldestablished friendship." And despite the loss of Hardy's "books, which Mr Marston says sell less only than those of Hall Came, Victoria Cross, and Florence Barclay, the friendship has continued to this day. Book publishing, this veteran declares, is one of ihe mast speculative of businesses. A deal in Victor Hugo taught him this early in life- "The Toilers of the Sea' , being a great success, Samoson Low, Marston and Co. paid £1400 for the English rights of "Ninety Three," four times the sum paid for the former work. It was a failure, and the firm just escaped a hoavy loss. ' "Writing of this publisher reminds ono that publishers' "readers" and the latters' little ways have been under discussion, of late, partly as a result of what Arnold Bennett has +o say of thorn in his "Truth About an Author," which has just been rei>ublished under his own name after originally appearing anonymously. Apropos. \V. B. Maxwell,* referring to the banning of his last book "The Devil's Garden," tells mc that his publisher complained with great bitterness of the actibn of tho library censors. "This u> a horrible business ior mc. Maxwell. he said. "In future 1 shall have to read your books myself."