THE KNACK OF POT-BOILING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1449, 25 May 1912, Page 9

THE KNACK OF POT-BOILING.

Some writers may be found in their .books and some may not; aoin© are more interesting than their books, and perhaps Mr. Nat Gould belongs to these. He is "the famous racing story-teller, and as his circulation is probably bigger than that of Miss Corelli and Mr. Hail Caine put together—it is said to have amounted •so i'ar to eight million copies in all—it does seem appropriate that a representative of the "Bookseller" should get to know how he does it. Mr. Gould has published about a hundred books, and as he is only about fifty-five, and produces every year four or five long novels and an Annual, he should beat records. He was asked whether it was Jiis custom to writs and rewrite, "and. make out an elaborate -plot-awl-all-that sort of -thing." Perhaps the question was put out of politeness, and it , is not surprising that Mr. Gould is very much in the position of Andrea del Sarto, the perfect painter— "No studies first, no sketches; that's long past." He does not even trouble about any particular plot, for "plots and incidents come easy enough, and.l just write away till 1 bring the tale to its •proper end." So, after all, Mr. Gould is inarticulate; ho does not tell us how he does it, "and probably few of us could descrilk our familiar and instinctive actions. In detail, of course, he must take care, for tho racing man is a great stittistician; ho may not bo well up.in construction or dialogue, but he can put you right' about Derby winners, and would not tolerate an error in a pedigree. It seems that Mr. Gould is sometimes bothered to , find names for his innumerable characters, and, like Dickens, he keeps lists of possible ones; when he cannot'find anything suitable he turns to "Bradshaw," and finds such capital material as Mr..Miles Hatting or Mr. Newton Heath, and so is safe from any possibility of libel. Of course ho has had a novel made into a play, and there is one very effective scene in. which a horso walks down a'staircase; most of us would never have ■ thought, of dramatising that. He is one of-the..happy men who .have found their work, -and though,- like Browning's perfect painter, who wanted to break away from perfection, ho "might perhaps like to try some other kind of story-telling," the tyranny of one's aptitudes and qualifications is not harsh. Anyhow, the racing men would never stand novels in tho style of Mr. Henry James.—Manchester "Guardian."