THE LATEST THING IN BOOKSHOPS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1681, 22 February 1913, Page 9

THE LATEST THING IN BOOKSHOPS.

C^°'J 00 f r^i H ?, use :' * n Devonshire street,- 1 ileab.i 1(1 s o;ul, London—an attempt to revive the pleasant and intimate bookshop of the past—was opened 'the other day witli the twanging of a good many lyres. •" • : Professor > Henry .• Newbold , performed thosa . littlo offices necessary to bringin" the venturo with ; ease' and propriety into the; world. He began with, a word of criticism. Mr. Harold Monro,, the founder of the Poetry House, had declared his intention of upholding a positive distinction between prose and pcetry. Then what would lie do with such verse aa this? asked the poet-professor: - . 'Life's a.cigar; i '.Love is;the taper.Light it: wo are . '! Ashes, and Vapour. was not poetry, but it was by J. K. Stephen, mid . was uncommonly good. On tho same piano was the work of (Jwcii Seaman. Parodies such as these men wrote were the finest form- of 'literary criticism, and he should bo very disappointed with any pootry shop that did not sell them. : •' '■"Then," Mr,;.Nowbold went on, "Mr. Monro is founding something which looks to me dangerously like an institution. I hive my&lf a horror of . institutions. When you found an institution you arc deliberately trying to cure some of the wounds of the world by putting its soul into splints and plaster of Paris, when what von ought to do is to promote tho circulation of the blood." . At the present moment, Mr. Newbold confessed, lie felt that the poets—and particularly tho very young poets—wero pursuing reality with an inteuMty of feeling that marked them off strongly from their predecessors belonging to what was known as the great Victorian age. • - • "But," he added, if you ask 'What is their message?' you'will be disappointed. The person who searches in our younger poets for a word of the sort commonly call 'helpful' will not find it. Nevertheless.' if he could take to himself something 'if tho spirit which went to tho making of these" poems ho would be lit'lned in a :rianner almost beyond Mief." 'Die special function of the Poetry Hons? is to servo as a centra for tho wile, discussion, and reading aloud of modern poetry. BOOKS OF 1912. SOME PRODUCTIONS OF NOTE. Much that is pood, arid very little that is first-rate, has been produced during the past yeir. It would bo difficult to name the most, prominent, book. The second volume nf Mr. Monypenn.v's "Life of Lord Beaconsfield." published on the eve of the author's untimely death, has an historical importance which, would ensure it a wide public and permanent lwsitioii, had it bseu written with less literary mid biographical art than it displayed. Next to it, or equal with it, in importance and npne.il come the "Latter* of George Mere-, dith," in themselves delightful, but a littlo tantalising to those who know, or suspect, that their .picture of the writer is far from complete. The historical works of the. vear are not remarkable. Professor" J. "n. Burv lias done something to remove a renroa'-h from English 'cholniship bv -publishing a valuable work on three generations, nf (he Eastern Roman Empire. Sir Georgo

Trcvelyan has completed his great work on the American Revolution by the issuo of tho thiid volume, which deals with Georgo 111 and Fox; M. Elio Halevy has begun a study of nineteenth-century England with a volume on.the state of affairs 111 the year of Waterloo; Mr. Flctcher, has renewed our acquaintance with English history in shirt sleeves and a pipe; and Mr. G. W. Forrest has completed hi; story of the Indian Mutiny. Tho biographical work done has boon more • interesting, if not more important. Sir Sidney Leo and his contributors have compiled a sterling three-volume supplement to the Dicti i iiy of National Biography, which contains much sound and some, disputable matter. While Sir Sidney's "Life of' King Jvdwnvd" in that supplement lias been hotly discussed, no such fate has attended Lord Esher's publication of the diaries, of Queen Victoria, whose early life and relations with Lord Melbourne have aI9D been brought into fuller light by the printing of the Letters of Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttclton (1787-1870). Lady Elizab"th Spencer Stanhope and Frances Lady Shelley have lieen among other subjects of pictures of the past, chiefly told in their own words. Mrs. Watts has published three volumes of the Life and Writings of her husband, tho beloved and admired artist. To Mr. J. B. Atlay's "Life of Ernest Roland.Wil.berforce," Bishop of Newcastle and of Chichester, the same pathetic interest attaches as to Mr. Monynenny's volume on Disraeli; and in Mr. G. W. E. Russell's "Life of "Edward King," Bishop of Lincoln, we have another good work on a great English Churchman. Mr. Wilfrid Ward has' published an important "Life of Cardinal 'Newman," and Miss • Petre an- invaluable account of Father Tyrrell. Lord Wolverhampton's Life has been written by his daughter,'Mrs...Robert Hamilton| and Sir John Burdon Sanderson's bv'Lndy Burdon Sanderson; while.Colonel ChailleLong has written of General Gordon in a Planner for which the British public was not_ wholly prepared. Literary history and biography .have V.en large in numbers, and serviceable. A.new and intelligent series of monographs has included critical studies of Ibsen, Gissing. Swinburne. Mr. Hardy, and others.' The Cambridge History of English Literature, pursuing its .steady eoiirse. has reached the age of Pope. Mr. Salisbury's "History of Proso Rhvthm" is worthy of n place, beside his "History of Prosody"; and Andrew Lang's "History of English Literature" has been d joy to those who like learning without pedan-> try and.a personal taste undisturbe'd by •the weight of. reputations. Among the most charming books of the year ; must • be.reckoned'the late Mrs. Paget Toynbee's' issue of letters, old.and new,, that passed between Horace Walpole and. Mine, du Deffand; and Mr. Albert Bigolow-Paine's Life-of .-Mark Twain.is among the.outstanding In the fields of imaginative or "crcn.tive" literature, it is needless to say that tho:''output" has been enormous, and depressingl to record that'very, little'of; it <ha's : reached any high degree of merit. In poetry many* will have found the -richest of the year's sheaves to be the introduction, through his own translations, of tils poems of the Indian mystic, Mr. Rabindra Nath Tagore. Meredith and Swinburne were dead before the year opened; and Mr. . Thomas Hardy, the only living poet of the previous generation, has been all silent. So has Mr. William Watson, but for a single play. Mr. John Masefield :has. won praise, blame, and a .prizo with ■some daring essays in poetry; Mr. Edtn Phillpotts has made .his bow. as a poet, and , Mr. John Galsworthv, Mr. De la ;Mare, nnd Miss. Evelyn, Underbill have "all published work of remarkable interest., Mehtion should bo made, too, of the Sir Arthur Quiller-Coiich, whom the Closing months of the yeaif have seen appointed •to the hew King Edward VII. .Chair of English Litefature' iit 'Cambridge litiivermty. . .i •• The activity in. drama' of several'wellknown novelists may be taken' a$ a .sign' ithat, the profits on a novel are hot now so great as they were a fev;* years ftf:o. •Mr. Galsworthy. Mr. Arnold Bennett,"Mr. Maurice Hewlett,, MK A.- E. W. .Mason, Mr. Eden Phillnotts, Mr. Hugh dc Selin.court, Mr. W; J. Locke, and -Mr. Gilbert Cannan have all appeared both as>novelist? and as, the authors of .some form of :s^ a Mlti° w'orlc'; andj i besidos ;the workaf writer.Sf 'novelsijdesei'vinrf'.of .at.tenrion as literature :havo been published .br-Mr. H, G; Wells, Mr.. Joseph Conrad (who lias, ,peculiarly beautiful . volume; of reminiscences), " Sir. -ArQitttti:QniU«rtGotieh, ..-Mr. • Cufininghamft Grahain, Mr'. , Wharton,.'Mi's.' Alfred ;Sidgwick,. Jfrs. Bellnc- Lowndes, .Mr. Charles. Marriott, x and Mr. Hugh Walpole. | ..... ' if the productions of; new literature havo been disanpoiating, there • is, no decrease .'in tho study *f the. litem'mi1 * 0 ' immediate or Temoter 'past. TJie Tear hos spoil a re-issue of .the works of Samuel Butler, and of. the novels of Mr. Hardy and of George Oiissing. Anion," TeprinN of earlier authors we owe to Oxford University three eminent publications; the renTints'of Georgo Savile. : Lord Halifax, of John Donne, and of the" al- • imst unknown'-poet. Aureliaii.Townshend. ■Thei several series of cheap reprints have nroved that the-public interest'in good literature is growing. :. A peculiarity-of the year's-pnblislung, moreover, has been tho* activity in cheap stores of infonna.tion on "general,knowledge.";in the diffusion of which the Cambridge University Press has played an .honourable part. , Noticeable, too, is the increase in the amount of, foreign literature trarsloted into English. Tho study of-Nietzseho has received,a great impetus through'the publication . of. Fmu. Forster-Nictr.sche's charming account ,of the poct-nhiloso-pher's boyhood, arid the completion of an .excellent English version of his works. .Valiant attempt«_ hiivo Iwon made to win ,an English nublic for the .works of August Strindberg;, and the posthumous •works of Tolstoy and the novels of, Dostoievsky arc among the Russiaif literature that'is'being brought to our dcoTS. A few foreign books, too,' in their original tongue, have won interest in ErfI'ld. There are obvious.reasons why Jit. Filon's "life of, th ft Prince Imperial" should find many, English readers., and tho sam n may 'said of: tho . German Crmvn Prince's account- of- his.-, tour it: India. Tliose who ' have begun ' their study, of' Brunetierg have ■weicom<'d ":the s»cpiid volmro of his historv of Frcnchelassioal literature. Jr. AnaMe France has set its nil talking over "L?s Dibx pnt'ooif," and Guv de Maunassarit's va'et has disproved the adage.—London "Times."