LITERARY GOSSIP

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21412, 2 March 1935, Page 15

LITERARY GOSSIP

Sir John Martin-Harvey told the Theatre Correspondent of the "Observer" recently that the new dramatisation of Dickens's "Great Expectations," under the title of "The Convict," would be produced at the Westminster Theatre on February 4: The adaptation has been made by C. E. Openshaw and Ethel Dickens (a granddaughter of the novelist). Naturally it has been impossible to get all the characters of the book into the play—though it is the closest-knit and most dramatic of all the novels—and the adaptation has concentrated on four of them: Magwitch, the convict; on Pip; on Miss Havisham; and on Estella. Pip will be played by a young actor who shows much promise, Mr Hubert Greg. Estella will be Miss Thea Holme, and Miss Havisham will be Miss Jean Cadell. lam playing Magwitch, which seems to me a wonderfully tragic and dramatic part, though not actually much longer than the three others. The two weeks at Westminster are intended to be only a preliminary canter. Many years ago the late Sir Henry Dickens (Dickens's youngest son, the Common Serjeant), after seeing me in "The Only Way," asked me' why I had not thought of playing in "Great Expectations." I could not then because I had much work on hand; and though in the next years two or three different dramatisations of the novel were offered me, none of them seemed satisfactory. I believe, however, that the new one does something like real justice to the book.

Mr D. B. Wyndham Lewis, in "Popular Motoring," continues to illuminate the adventurous past and the romantic versatility of his fellow-contributor, Mr H. V. Morton: Morton, Police Chief and Friend of Bees One day in 1879 Gladstone sent for Morton and said: "Are you in search of anything in particular at the moment?" "No, sir," said Morton, twisting his small black moustache with customary aplomb. "Then," said Gladstone fretfully, I wish you'd take over Scotland Yard and clean up the underworld, or something." , ~ While cleaning up the underworld Morton's eagle eye was caught by a beautiful veiled girl who seemed to be concealing something from the eyes of the police. "Arrest that beautiful veiled girl! shouted Morton at once, gnawing his moustache. He strode over to the suspect and said peremptorily: "You are concealing something, girl. What is it ? " „ r. "Only my leve for you," replied the lovely creature, smirking at the handsome, if stern, Chief of Police. "Um," said Morton, nonplussed, yet gratified. "Um, um, um. But what is that you are hiding under your rich Oriental shawl, girl?" "It is," replied the girl, "a design for a machine enabling vehicles to propel themselves forward by internal combustion in the engine. I worked h myself," she added shyly, "in Berlin wool. And what is more," said the girl, "I love you, Jasper Morton." After some thought the handsome Chief of Police said, less harshly: "I will buy the idea, girl, for a kiss." Clapping her hands with glee, the veiled girl sold Morton the internal combustion engine idea for a kiss and shyly retired, enabling Morton to resell the idea for £550,000 and a rakeoff of 60 per cent, on the gross. He then retired from Scotland Yard and kept a lot of bees, of which he was very fond, his nickname among the populace beingg " 'lron' Morton, the Friend of Bees, or Maurice Maeterlinck."

Comfort, advice, and warning for the diarist, from Mr Robert Lynd, writing in the "News-Chronicle": A diary is the ideal place in which to work off the pangs of conscience. It is the daily confessional from which you will emerge, if not a better man, at least feeling a, better man. And what feeling could be more enjoyable than that? The genius of the diarist, however, like the genius of the letter-writter, is one of the rarest things on earth. Of all the millions of diaries and letters that have been written since the art of writing was invented, the diaries and letters that are enormously well worth reading could be packed into a single bookcase. . X)o not be disheartened, however, if you enjoy this form of scribbling. It is as harmless as gardening or stampcollecting or any of the normal hobbies of mankind. But if you find yourself reduced to making entries about the weather, I should not, if I were you, go on with the diary. This would prove that Nature never meant you to be a diarist. She obviously intended you to keep a rain-gauge instead. The glass cases at Messrs Sother-

an's, in Piccadilly, held in January some extraordinarily interesting Lamb relics. They are associated with his adopted daughter, Emma Isola. The writings consist of two autograph letters, one by Charles, the other by Mary Lamb, and original and other poems, simple but impeccable in sentiment, - in Lamb's handwriting. They were transcribed by him in an album for the edification of Emma. The pictures are copies made by Emma in Indian ink of three of the plates in Bagster's edition of Walton's "Angler," and they used to hang in their little maple-wood frames on the walls of Lamb's own room at Edmonton. The ink of the manuscripts may not be blue-black, but the writing is clear; and though the drawings are not masterpieces, they have an astonishing, almost a deceptive, fidelity to the originals. Such relics of Lamb are rare; and it is less their aesthetic than a piously vicarious interest that gives them their value. The collection, which came from the Moxon family into which Emma married, was to be broken up and offered for separate sale. In writing his life of General Booth, "God's Soldier," Mr St. John Ervine spared himself no pains. For instance, he read every issue of the "War Cry"—the Salvation Army's weekly paper, first started in 1879. Some parts of the book have been rewritten more than a dozen times. It took Mr Ervine six months of correspondence and enquiry to ascertain v fact which, when printed, occupies half a line. The result is what Dr. W. R. Matthews, the successor to Dr. Inge as dean of St. Paul's, describes as "one of the few great religious biographies of modern times." In the opinion of "The Times," it is not only destined to be the standard life of William Booth but deserves to become the standard history of the Salvation Army. A pendant to the book-publishing [statistics of 1934, printed in this column last week, is supplied by j the "News-Chronicle" columnist, ["Dogberry": "I'm goin' to read a good book every week." At this outrageous pronouncement 1 burst out laughing. "My poor girl," I said, "it can't be done. There aren't that number written."