LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18231, 15 November 1924, Page 11

LITERARY GOSSIP

The late Lord Willonghby de Broke read, and studied, and admired. Surtees —with results that appear in his recently published book of reminiscences, "The Passing Years." "The Times" gives a description of William. Fairbrother, tenant of a farm on the Compton Verney estate during three generations of Barons Willoughby de Broke, as an example, that might have come from Surtees: Mr Fairbrbther was one of the fine flowers of Warwickshire. In person he was short of stature, with a lean and wiry frame supported oh legs that seemed made for the • saddle. His face was lined, furrowed, and weather-beaten, of the kind that only belongs to those who have Kvc.d in the open air with horses and dogs and oxen and sheep, but a.face that portrayed the shrewdness of a long line of ancestors who had worked hard for'their living, and in doing so had built up an honourable position. ... In the hunting-field he wore a "pork pie" hat, stick-np collar, a blue bird's eye cravat, a dark grey tail-coat with side pockets and large flaps, cotton corduroy breeches of the colour then known as "gosling green," and boots with brown tops. On non-hunting. days the upper man was tho same, but the topboots would be replaced by pigskin leggings and walking boots with no toe-caps. At the rent dinner, or at K)ther civic functions, there would be the same cravat and the same boots, but a silk tall fiat, a black and glossy broadcloth tail-coat, and drab or grey Chipping Norton trousers.

An American who sought out Walter de la Mare recently was Bhocked to find so few traces of "literature" in the writer's appearance. "Instead of a wild-eyed rbapsodist, he found a man with the figure of a Kentish yeoman, square built, solid looking, hard thinking—a smiling and cheerful man, healthily surrounded by a wife and numerous children—a man with solid Huguenot ancestors, who hadn't been moulded by a university,- but after a literary adolescene at St. Paul's Cathedral School had stepped at Easter, 1890, into the city office of the AngloAmerican Oil Company, where ho remained for eighteen years, spending the flower of his days in the department of statistics." ' _ . - .

Essex has long been a favoured residential county for writers, foremost among them being H. G. Wells, who lives hard by Dunmow (of Flitch . of Bacon fame) an old world, cottage which used to be known as. The Rectory, but which Mr Wells changed to Eaaton Glebe! The house is on "the estate •of the "Countess of Warwick, herself a writer of note. The Wellses and the Warwicks have always been great friends. The Warwick house, Easton Lodge, was handed over by the Countess to the Labour party some time ago as a. country home,' or: week-end rest cure, for its tired but prominent leaders. . ' \

It is one of the tenets of French literary criticism, saya the New York "Herald-Tribune,": that ;every writer of short stories which possess j the qualities of imagination and atmosphere is the spiritual son of Edgar Allan Poe. This gratifying view is empha.sised in M. Louis Seylaz's "Edgar Poe et les* Premiers Syinbolifltes Francaise;" : the most recent of the numerous Fr,ench ; tributes to the can poet; M. Seylaz's work reads hke a doctor's thesis, but it has the virtue of /thoroughness, :■ and includes ; tremWy valuable .bibliography,:,lt -contains,: besides :the j usualvanalyjjes • ;of Poe-'s influence upon the romantic and masters usually: selected: for such analysis, some specially interesting comments' concerning 'his- -influence on Mallarme, Verlaine and baud, and ah excellent; chapter -oia Joris-Karl Huysnians. , The author; has, moreover, somewhere uncovered, the fact that Baudelaire,who prdposed a tbast to Edgar Poe while the latter was starving at Fordham; was not the first to translate -Poe into French, a' volume of tales having been published three. years, before the appearance of Baudelaire's -"Histories Extraordinaires" in 1856. r

Here is a story' told against himself by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 'his newly published "Memories .Jand Adventures.'.' . . .-.,.,.

Arriving ..in Paris,, he 'hailed a cabman to Srive him to 1 an hotels■ -■ -"■■' 'Br. Doyle,*' said -that worthy, perceive from your appearance that yon. have recently been in Constantinople: I haye reason to. think also that you have been at Buda, arid I perceive wme indication that you were not far from Milan," r :■-, V"-. .-'■.' .-' - ,•;-'•. \ "Wonderfnll" answered the creator of Sherlock Holmes. .''l^ye'francs for. the secret of how you did it.',' ' "I looked'at the labels pasted'on your-trunk," said-the cabby.:

A little volume written by Lamb for. children, practically unknown to Lamb collectors, has been discovered arid is now in the possession of Gabriel Wells> rare book dealer, of New York. In a letter to his friend Manning, dated January 2nd, 1810,.Laml> writes : f I have, published a little boot for children on titles of honour and to give them some idea, of difference of lank and gradual rising. I have made a little scale supposing myself to- receive the following accessions cf dignity from the King, who is the fountain of ionour, as at first W>«C. Lamb, (2) C. Lamb, Esq. (3) Sir C. Lamb, Bart., (4) Baroa Lamb_ of Stamford, (5) Viscount Lamb (6) Earl Lamb, (7) Marquis Lamb, (8) Duke Lamb. It would look like quibbling to carry it on further, and especially as it is not necessary for children to go beyond 'ordinary iitles- of subregal dignity in our own country. Otherwise, I have sometimes in my dreams imagined myself still advancing as (9) King Lamb, (10) Emperor Lamb, (11) Pope Innocent, higher than which, is nothing' ' References to the " little book" did iiot. eaeape the attention. 5 , of Lamb's biographers, but it was generally considered "as purely Now, more than a century after 4l was first published, a copy has -been discovered. It ia defeated .to tte Princess Elizabeth, and the dedication is dated 1808.', Another edition was' issued in 1809, and yet another ia.- ISlO", so .it appears that-the T>bok had quite n run even, at price, of iav^a-shil-lings, the high priee'beingvdnet6«the twenty-four crfoorred eograviiigs Vnich illustrated it. ,' .. -.;. .-■■ c.-, -lii-f'-^'.

A number of letters*of George EBot, whose real (married) .same, as- some people were reminded' the pother day by the death of her.husband, was Mary Ann Cross, will be destroyed under the will of her ' niece, Stanly Susannah Clarke, who died recently in London at the age of eighty. Miss Clarke left orders for her executors to burn or otherwise make away with the letters as soon as they could after her death. George £lk>t'6 books in the possession of. her niece were left to Miss Clarke'* nephew, Charles.Mwacd-Clarke. _