LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3124, 30 June 1917, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Stray Leaves. Personally I <lo not care for Tolstoy 'a novels, savo always that truly great book "Anna Karonina.' But tho famous Hunsian has many admirers in Now Zealand, judging by the faot that his books aro regularly stocked in our book shops. 'IVo of' Tolstoy's works, "Tho Cossacks" and "Resurrection,-" havo, .1 notice, been added to that excellent series, ''Tho World's Classics." I'rom Mr! "Literary Loltei in London "Sphere," I gather that the old-astablished and once greatly esteemed literary weekly (transformed a year or so ago into n monthly) the "Atkenneun, has been acquired by the propriotor.i of "The Nation," tho little-England, peace-at-any-prico weekly edited by Mr. Massinghnm, to whom Mr. Lloyd Gc-oxge alluded 113 "a poisonoii3 gasbag." lho columns of tho "Athenaeum" under i!he changed conditions aro mainly taken up with articles on "social reconstruction." As a journal of literature and the fine arts, as it was foimorly styled, it is now quito negligiblo. Tho one weekly literal? paper of importance and distinction is "Tho Times Weekly Litoraiy. Supplement." Swinburne had a happy—or unhappy—• gift of personal abuse which led him at time 3 into exhibitions which disgraoed his natural and filler 6olf. Thus, dipping into 1 Mm. Disney Leith's "Boyhood of Algernon Charles Swinbusn, I learn that the poet put an end to his long correspondence with Emerson by telling the beloved of Boston that he was a wrinkled and toothless baboon, who, after having first hoisted himself into notoriety on the shoulders of Carlyle, now spits and splutters from a filthier platform o.t his own finding and fouling. _ Carlylo him6«lf could have said nothing more virulently "nasty," and the Sage of Chelsea was no amateur in the art of personal ab "Liber" notes with regwt the death, early in April last, of f>. famous Edinburgh bookseller, Mr. John Giant, Mr. Grant) .w<is mainly a socoud-hsnd, or, as it is now the fashionable to say, nn antiquarian bookseller, but he specialised in the sale of what a.re remainders" —that is to say, overprinted or surplus copies of new books, which after being put on the market in the usual way, are disposed of at very much reduced prices by those who buy them up on bloc. Many New Zealanders will snaro my regret that Mr. Grant has passed away.' His catalogues, which ho distributed very widely, always afforded mo entertaining reading, although tending to a breakogo of tho tenth commandment. The April issue, of "Tho Bookman" (Hodder and Stoughton) has, as its principal feature, an excellent biographical sketch of tho once-popular novelist G. P. R. James. Mr. fi. S. M. Ellifu' who gave "Bookman" readora thoso excellent articles on "Ingoldsby," Barham, and W. BL Ainsworth, is the author of tho Jame3 appreciation. In the May issuo of "The Bookman," also to hand this irook from the same publishers, special attention is paid to the new books of tho (English) spring publishing . season. Thero is also a special article, "Soldiers Three," by Mr. J. P. Collins, in which tho personality and writings of lan Hay, "Sapper," and Boyd Cable aro dealt with. Both issues aro copiously illustrated with portraits' of authors, etc. Patrick M'Gill, the navvy poet-novol-ist, to whom we owe "Children of tho Dead End," "Tho Great Push," and so many other interesting works, will havo a new novel out very shortly, with Herbert Jenkins, entitled "Tho Brown Brethron."

The "big public" with a vengeance. Mr. John Long senda me word that the sale of Mr. Nat Gould's popular stories of tbo turf, published by him, now oxceed ton million copies! Mr. Lung announces that Mr. Gould's very latest production, "Tho Smasher,' for early publication.

Home papers report the death, just under fifty,' of Mr. Murray Gilclirist. In liia day, Mr. Gilchrist turned out some excellent short etones, dealing with life In the Peak district of Derbyshire. He was one of the late W. S. Henley's discoveries, and mote eomo of his best stories for the "National Observer," under Henley's editorship. He was a prolific writer —with twentysoven volumes to his credit. His last look, "Honeysuckle Love," was pt.blished only a week previous to his death. "Sapper's" latet collection of war stories, "No Man's Land,' is to be published by Hodder and Stoughton,