BOOKS & AUTHORS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2366, 23 January 1915, Page 8

BOOKS & AUTHORS

*-— — •' .• ' (By liber.)'|?;\ > i 'jfej'_ LIBER'S NOTEBOOK Princess Mary's Gift Book, the total proceeds from the sale of which aro'to be given to the Queen's ".Work for Woman" Fund, was to be published at the-end of November,',so.copies should soon' bo on 6ale here. , Amongst the ( contributors aro Sir James Barrie.Rud-' yard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conah, Sir Eider Haggard, and Messrs. A.'E. P Mason, Hall Oaine, Ralph Connor, and others. ' • The' illustrations include' Napier -Homy;, R.A.,-Arthur Rackham, Byam Shaw; Joseph 1 Simpson, H. M. Brock, Lewis Baumor, E. J Sullivan, Edmond Dulac, and other well-known artists. * * * Not a few of my readers will regret to learn of the death, at the age of 53, of Mr. Arthur Morns Binstead, which occurred.early in November. Under his pen name of "Pitcher." an abbreviation of his first nom-de-plume, "The Tale Pitcher,"-Mr. Binstead was for many years an industrious and valued contributor to that extraordinary but most amusing weekly journal, "The Sporting Times" —otherwise known aB "The Pink-'TJn." His contributions were collected in various volumes, of which "A Pink-'Un and a Pelican," "Gals' Gossip," and "Houndsditch Day by Day" are the best known. Arthur Goldberg, "The Shifter" of the "Sporting Times/' died' some years ngo, and Mr. E. Spenoer ("Nathaniel Gubbins") and most of the other members of the original and brilliant staff of John Corlett's ("The Master's") famous weekly have, I fancy, now passed away. Of late' years _ Mr.' Binstead had been the editor of a ioprnal called "Town Topics," run much on the same lines as '"The Sporting Times." „ * * * * Hannibal, Missouri, the little to to which was Mark Twain's birthplace, is described in a volume of travel sketches, "Abroad at Home,' by ari. American writer, Julian Street, who'--' says the "Mark Twain House" is "a tiny box of a cottage, its sagging' front so taken up five windows and a door, that there is'hardly room for the, .little bronze -plaque whicn marks the place." At one side of the cottage is an alley running back to the house of Huckleberry Finn, and it was" in that alley that stood the' historic, fence which young Sam . Clemens oajoled tho other boys into whitewashing for him, as related in "Tom Sawyer." Hannibal of to-day honours Mark' Twain's memory, but is practical enough to value its commercial possibilt; ties ("We have the cheapest electric force in the Mississippi Valloy.and can offer free factory sites, yes, Birr ) far more than the literary associations of the place. # , Lovers of dogs should note the publication of a volume simply entitled "Memories" (Heinemanri), in which John Galsworthy, a devoted admirer of the canine tribe, writes most delightfully about a pet spaniel. The book, is illustrated by Miss Maud Earl, whose pictures of dogs are so well known. * * # * A special feature of the Ohristmaß number of "Scribner's Magazine" is a complete and hitherto unpublished story by the late Robert Louis Stevenson, entitled "The Waif Woman.",