LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18425, 4 July 1925, Page 11

LITERARY GOSSIP

The history of the Rubaiyat in the auction rooms is a record of a book that has come into its rich and deserved heritage. It is a pleasant record for those lovers of English literature who place this marvellous poem in the front ranks of great poetry. When it was first issued by Quaritch in 1559, in an -di-tioii limited to 230 copies, the sale was so slow that Fitzgerald presented 2CO oi' them to his publisher. Thev found their way into Quaritch's "pennybox" in the front of his shop. There Swinburne, who was at the time with Hossetti, discovered it. and bought a few copies.

"Next day," said Swinburne [we are quoting from the H. B. Smith catalogue], "when, we returned for more the price was raised to the iniquitous and exorbitant sum of twopence. You should have heard, but you can imagine, the eloquent and impressive severity of Gabriel's humorous expostulations on behalf of a d'efrauded, if limited, public. But we were extravagant enough to invest in a few more copies, even at that scandalous price." Carlyle commented characteristically on the poem: »

I think my old friend Fitzgerald might have spent his time to much better advantage than in busying himself with the verses of that old Mahometan blackguard!

One of the very finest copies of this book known to-day, with a correction in Fitzgerald's hand and an autographed letter to th& recipient laid in, was offered at auction at the Anderson Galleries sale of books from the libraries of the late Bertha Bolton, Viola C. Lyman, etc., on April 27th. Its value to collectors is enhanced by the inscription, in purple ink on the front cover, "Bessie Howe," who was Fitzgerald's housekeeper. This copy is in perfect state —no dog-ears, no coffee stains (some of the books of Charlas Lamb,, it is said, were ale-stained!) and its condition offers first-hand evidence of how neat and able a housekeeper she must have been. The name on the cover is in her hand. Literary history fails to reveal what she thought about the Eubaiyat—she probably thought it "grand"—hut present-day collectors will not fail to commend the exquisite care she took of it. Quite probably she did"not read it at all, which is as it should he. It is enough for poor weak woman to have to attend to literary geniuses without being required to road their productions.

Hitherto South Africa has given toEnglish letters one name, and one only. Jf there had been no Olive Schreiner, its life would have found no literary expression of sufficient quality to attract attention beyond the l/oundaries of its own veldt. But, H. W. Horwiil writes enthusiastically from London to tho New York "Times," it has just .produced, a new writer, of undoubted talent, and possibly of genius. With her first book,. "Tho Little Karoo," Pauline Smith has mado an immediate reputation. It is a small volume, consisting of eight short stories, *ufc it has proved big enough to place dier in the front rank. It is sponsored by Arnold Bennett, "perhaps the first wondering admirer." as,-he calls himself, of the authfnr's "strange, austere, tender and ruthless talent." The critics speak with one voice: "Some of the most beautiful writing encountered for many a day," "an unusually fine and sensitive imagination," "|.ht» finished touch of the master hand," "Tchekov might have written it"— and son on.

Pauline Smith was herself born at Oudtshoorn, in tho heart of the Little 'Karoo, Where her father, an English doctor, had settled to practise his profession. At that time, Oudtshoorn was a small village, carrying on much of its trade By means of barter. On returning to South Africa after a few years spent in England for her education, Pauline Smith began to write sketches of her surroundings. They were sent to various periodicals but attracted little attention until J. Middleton Murry published "The Pain" in his monthly magazine, "The Adelphi." Now they are famous.

There is a revival of fairy-tale literature in France. Not the resurrection of the dear old stand-bys. hut the production of modern stories of fairies. '•'Can one write fairy tales in this year of grace 1925, under the proconsulate of M. Gaston Doumergue, under tho Radical consulate of M. Herriott and with Francois Albert, enemy of the supernatural, head master of the university:'" asks a critic. He answers his question with a list of fairy stories that modern authors have recently turned out. The list is formidable in numbers and impressive for the true fantasy of the work. Though most of them cloak a deeply' ironic meaning, yet they are not sugar-coated pills merely. Perhaps more than any other has French literature been giyen to fairy tales. From the dryads of Ronsard all the wav down to Anatole France and his "Abeille," with Perrault, Diderot, Victor Hugo. Charles Nodier. Baldour, and "even the dry V-oltaire," few 'French authors, whatever their writing specialty, but have-now and again turned fairies.

"Why do reviewers and readers so often disagree? Authors answer profanely, publishers bitterly, reviewers with"contempt. And all are usually, though not always, wrong. For reviewers are.inoro honest than authors suppose, and", as a rule, more perspicacious than readers believe,' and sometimes better able-to judge of the absolute merits of a book than the man who is selling it" (says tho "Saturday Review of Literature"). "But -unfortunately for pence in the literary world, 'absolute merit' bv no means tells all there is to tell abo"ut a book. We read books to pass the time, we rend for timely or topical interest, we read to suffuse some immediate emotion of our own, we read because the book tells, us what we want to believe is true; and all of these desires, if satisfied, can make a book seem interesting and good, even as a religious prepossession or a dislike of dialect can make other books unsympathetic to individual tastes. We know what we like, aw l rightly hate to be told that it is unworthy."

"It is tho business of the reviewer to consider these prejudices and discount them. Neglect them he cannot without seriously damaging the news value.of his review. And if there is a difference between criticism and reviewing it lies in this —that the reviewer is concerned with all three elements of time, the circumstances of the present as well as the past, and the future, whereas the critic's business is to estimate literature with special reference to its permanent values. That is why reviewing is so precarious, and good reviewing so difficult. Its audience is in the present, and yet the present changes even while the writer writes. Therefore, like a mariner who looks at sky and sea before going below to plot his course, the reviewer musti franklv ask. Will this book be liked or disliked now and by whom, before raising more fundamental questions ? And yet his chief job is to decide according to his lights what a book is really good for or bad for, and if he does not do this he is at best a news writer or a. gossip, at the worst a toady to the pubuc."