LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1848, 6 September 1913, Page 9

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Stray Leaves. Rodin's bust of W; E. Henley has been placed in the National Portrait Gallery. London. It was presented to the nation by Henley's widow in memory of their daughter Margaret. .Early this month is to ■ be published Mr. Compton Mackenzie's new novel "Sinister Street." As in that fine novel, I "CarnivaL" the sceno is laid in London. An edition de luxe of Stevenson's Poems in the now famous Florence type of t'he Riccardi Press, is to bo published shortly. The format will bo similar to that of tho one volumo edition of Kipling's collected poems. "Walter Pater," a critical study by, Edward Thomas, is announced by Mr. Martin Seeker. Mr. Thomas must be a tremendous worker, for within tho last three or four mouths ho has produced volumes of criticism on writers so far apart in style as George Borrow and A. C. Swinburno, and now comes a book on Pater. * ■ * •* - - Hodder and Stoughton are issuing a. shilling reprint of that excellont novel, "Lord Richard in the Pantry," by Martin Swayne. The author'is a son of Sir William Robertson Nicol. • # . .# . Forthcoming biographical,w;orks, to be published by T. Fisher ;TJriwin' aro. "Lord Lister, his Life and Work, ' by Dr. G. T> Wrendi ; ( ,"Ouida" ..(Loujso de, la Ramee), by Miss -Elizabeth' Leo;"Francois Boucher," the 'famous 18th century French painter of court beauties, by Mrs. Bearno; and.,' "Fabre, Poet of Science," by Dr. Legros, translated by 1 Bernard C. Miall. ■.»»■« ' The Germans seem to want to tako possession of Shakespeare. The German Shakespeare Society now numbers, so I read, over 600 members. It objects are "to introduce Shakespeare, tho greatest poet of Teutonic speech . . . to tho German people, to whom he lias, on the whole, remained hitherto a stranger, while (ho has only appeared on the German stage in a partial and erratic mannor and under the strangest transformations." The socioty proposes to bring out a popular and annotated edition of Shakespeare's works, to establish a Shakespeare library at Weimar, and to issuo a Shakespeare -Year Book. Stratford-on-Avon will have to look to its laurels. * * * ■ Some two years ago John Lane publislied an American translation entitled "The Song of Songs," of Sudermann's realistic novel, "Tlio Hohelied." The • English edition was refused circulation by the libraries, and a prosecution was threatened. The publishor now issues an entirely new translation by Beatrice Marshall, and prints, as a preface, a series of letters on tho book by Sudermann himself, and by soich well-known English writers as E. F. Benson, A. E, W. Mason, G. B. Shaw, Eden Philpotts, Thomas Hardy, Sir A. Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and others, who all contend that it is absurd to call tlio story immoral. It may not bo immoral, but "Liber's" personal opinion is that it is a dull and morbid production, which nothing ' could induce_ him to • plough through a second time. » * * Two of Bernard Shaw's oailier books. "The Quintessence of Ibsenism" and "The Perfect Wagnerite," are being ro- ■ issued by Constable iii a now edition, ' similar in format to their library edition ' of G.B.S.'s plays. Tlio new edition of ; the Ibsen book will contain an analysis i of four plays not written in 1891, when ■ t'he first edition was published, also > much new matter generally. \ G.B.S. also has a,new volume of his , own plays in preparation, with Messrs. , Constable, containing "Misalliance," j with a preface on parents and children; "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets," with j a "preface on Shakespeare and Mr. , Frank Harris"—this aught to. bo very amusing—and "Fanny's First Play." ' * * » l Wilfrid Wilson Gibson's remarkable , poems of industrial life, "Daily Bread," to which I liavo moro than once referred in this page, aro now republished in a single volumo at 3s. Gd. (Elkin Mat--5 thews). Tho samo author's "Fires" is t now procurable in threo separate vol- [ luines at Is. Gd. cloth, Is. paper (Eng- , lish prices). ► # * * As 1 expected would be the case, j Madamo Sarah Grand is writing a ses quel to her remarkable story "Ad- _ nam's Orchard," a novel which has nover, to my mind, gained the popularj ity its merits deserve. ', Tlio "Book Monthly" gravely pub,l liflhes tho porfcctly astounding news - tliac "Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, tho 3. American poetess, dances very well, as a a poetess should.' " Tho "poetess" has v always been given to posing, and from v that to* dancing—on the piles of dollars 1 contributed by admirers of hor work— ,1 is quite u natural transition. 2 I read with some amusement in my o Dominion the_ other morning, that a ccr--2 tain Mr. White, editor of the American magazine "The Argosy," has been com- ■- paring English and American fiction, - grnatly, to the disadvantage of the for- , miß". I should not imagine Mr. White's ' oplT:'„in on fiction to bo worth very d much. Judging by the sentimental rubif bish which passer, for fiction in tho tnagasiuHi bp edits. is i An n miilter of fact, American fiction I- is behind the English fiction in t! criD of aiilijvct-, courage of treatment,

and literary style. Whoro is there an American novelist to compare with H. G. Wells, or Compton Mackenzio, or Oliver Onions, or Algernon Blackwood, or Maurice Hewlett, or May Sinclair, or Mrs. Beloc Lowndes? Tho averago American novel is readable. Voila tout I That American novel 9 sell well is by no means a proof of their quality. Tho "best seller" is too often the trashiest book. America has certainly produced some capablo "short story" writers, such as 0. Henry, Norris, Lloyd Osborne, Jack London, as against Frank Harris, Leonard Morrick, Jacobs, I'ett Ridge, and Oliver Onions, to mention a fow English writers in this genre, whose names crop up readily in one's memory. But for tho novel of mannors, of phyCQlogical treatment, tho novel in wliich mere sentiment plays a secondary part, outsido tlio work of Edith Wharton, Gertrude Atherton, and Herrick, what has she produced of late years? Precious littlo that really counts.