LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18413, 20 June 1925, Page 13

LITERARY GOSSIP

A sale at Sotheby's that attracted great attention a few weeks ago was that of the Cardigan Chaucer, interest being heightened by tho romantic story of the adventures of this "the most important Early English manuscript of literary interest which has occurred for sale in many years." During the early days of the" Great War the manuscript disappeared from Deene Park, the ancestral home of the Cardigans. A long and careful search disclosed no traco of it.

For nine years it was completely lo9t. Then, according to tho London "Times." a member of the BrudenellBruce family (heirs to the Cardigan Estate), happened to see a short paragraph in a Scandinavian newspaper to the effect that the Cardigan Chaucer was in a college library near New York. There was only one Cardigan Chaucer MS. Enquiries were at once made, and these showed that the MS. was taken to London and sold; it was afterward disposed of to a New York buyer, and then again sold to the college library for, it is said, about £4OOO. On proof being shown that the MS. had been stolen, it was at once handed over to a private detective and brought back to London a few months ago. A few friends and others interested in the matter were permitted by Mr Brudenell to examine the volumo at a London bank late last year.

The surprising ■ part of the whole story is that the whereabouts of the MS. should have remained hidden for nine years, and then have been revealed only by accident. But the fact is that many rare books and important pictures are sold in London .with the proviso that the transaction be kept secret. There are often obvious reasons for this, so that a condition of secrecy does not excite suspicion. Doubtless the thief was fully aware of the delicacy of the transaction in which he had engaged himself, and ho was fully prepared with a good and convincing Btory. Although his name is well known to the owner of the book, there would presumably be difficulties in arresting him on the Continent on a warrant fjr stealing a book, in England, and in any case the, thief did not make a fortune out of his theft. The story of tho Cardigan Chaucer MS. is one of the few romances of stolen books which end happily —for tho original owner, at all events.

The manuscript is a folio of 244 loaves, of which a few are missing to complete tho volume, which comprises the "Canterbury Tales." The MS. has boon at Deene Park for generations, but how or when it got there there is no record, and there is nothing in the volume to indicate any previous ownership. Its existence there has long been known to all Btudents of English literature, but all requests to examine it wore refused by the late Lady Cardigan. Neither of the two great Chaucer students, Professor Skeat and • Dr. Furnivall, was allowed to see. the MS. which falls into the group of thoße—ten in all, and nearly all in public libraries in England—which afford the best text of the "Canterbury Tales." As already indicated, the Cardigan Chaucer is entirely unedited, and a collation of the first leaf only with Skeat's text shows sixteen variations of reading; and-there can be no doubt that a complete collation would bring to' light numerous important readings hitherto unknown to previous editors of Chaucer, and many undoubtedly of great literary intorest.

Though- a man may net be a hero to hie valet, Mark Twain was to his maid.' Here aro some glimpses of ; the humorist supplied by Miss Kate Leary (the maid) to the "Pictorial Beview":— "I used to massage Trig head every morning. He used to havo a feeling that if his hair was massaged every clay it would stay in; that he wouldn't ever got bald. He'd ring for me at a certain time to massage his head—even up to the day that ho died. And nobody ever had more beautiful hair than he had." Later Katy tell? us that Mark Twain '' never appeared •in his famous white suit in those days; thst came afterward," and goes on to say that he wa9 a "very good-looking man—Oh, very good-looking indeed "—with "nico eyes," which were really blue, though they boeame "fierce and black" whenever he got "angry.or upset over any-, thing like losing his precious .manuscripts," According to her also, ho "always dresr very nice," and she recalls:—

He used to wear a Prince Albert when he was drest up good, and he had greyetriped trousers; but I don't knew what kind of a waistcoat he wore. I guess, it was black like his coat, and he wore nice little low collars with a pretty little, black tie—a bow like in his picture—and, oh,'he didn't wear shirts buttoned in front like they used to wear in those days. He didn't like those shirts, so he had a man in Hartford make his shirts special for him with the buttons on the back, but h 6 wanted the collar on the shirt, sewed on half-way, one of those little collars turned over, so that it was easy for him to ' get into—without swearing, I guess!

Of the life in Mark Twain's home at Hartford, Katy says:—

' Well, the day would begin like this: We had breakfast about half-past seven, and at that time the family, meaning Mr and Mrs Clemens, never came down for their breakfast till about 'leven o'clock, and then Mr Clemens (he never eat any lunch, you know), he'd go to his billiard-room'to write. He left.strict orders not to havo anybody disturb him. Oh, for nothing! Some days he worked harder than others; but every day not to disturb him as he was a very busy writer! Well, he would appear again about half-past five (they had dinner at six o'clock in those days)'; he'd come down and get ready for dinner, and Mr 3 Clemens would' get ready, too. Mrs Clemens always- put on a lovely dress fcr dhmer, even when we was ! alone. Then they always had a mnsicbox in the hall, you know, and George would set that going at dinner every dav. Played nine pieces, that music4jox" did, and he always set it going every night. They brought it from Geneva and it was wonderful. It was foreign. It used to play all by itself; it wasn't like a phonograph, you know. It just went with a crank. George would wind it up, and they would have pretty music all during the. dinner. Afterward they all gathered together in the library and set around the great open fireplace .if it was in the winter time. 'Mr Clemens and they all set down in big chairs, or even set on the floor sometimes (that is Susie and Clara did), and Mr Clemens would have Browning or Dickens and would read aloud to them.

A collection of several hundred volumes, consisting of various editions of Montaigne and of books relating to him, was recently given to the Princeton University library by Mrxje. Le' Briin, in the namo of Pierre Le Bran, New York architect. All of tho known editions of the great essayist's works published before his death in 1592, including the excessively elaborate Bordeaux edition of the essays of I£P3, are represented in the collection.