LIBER'S NOTEBOOK.

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 62, 7 December 1918, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTEBOOK.

The Price tof Books, ■ In view of the end of the war. many book-buyers are, -I find, discussing the chances of prices coming:'-down'to. the prewar level. To boolclovers whose purses are not over well lined tho big advance in tho price of such series as "The World's Classics," "Everyman's Library and the various cheap series published by Methuen, Collins, and Nelson has be.en a sore trial; For some time to come I fear, the advanced price now charged, .for such books' will remain unaltered. Talking the: other-.day to a gentleman who is interested in the-paper trade,' he informed mo.that,he> did not anticipate any very substantial drop in the price ot. paper-for book purposes-until quite the end of next year. It is doubtful, also, whether the wazes of printers and binders, which-'have'been.so greatly increased during the war period, will suffer anj; very material diminution for some time to-come;' I am afraid, .therefore, that for the' present, and for many months to come, we camiotlook for a return to the old prices. Jiore's the pity! Joseph Conrad, . , . \ - -First editions of Joseph Conrad's works continue to fetch ever increasingly hisrh. prices at tho London book sales, nix pounds was given the other <lay for a first edition of "Almayer's Folly,' published (at 65.) by Fisher Unwin m 189.?. I possess a copy.of the first edition, but unfortunately it is only the "Colonial Einxiiiy" issue, and this,' I am afraid, has no special value. The - - collector must have the English edition, and yet, .save for the lettering "on the back, the /English and colonial editions are practically the same. The late Mr. Alexander W.. Turnbull was building up a collection of Conrad first editions, and had, I believe, got most of them before his much-to-be-Tegrelted death. Dents are, I notice, publishing a new edition of. Conrad's books, but whether it will be.complete I do not know,:and.the' binding/is, to.me nt least, simply hideous. Those, of my readers who are interested in Conrad's work should make a point of buying a, little bpok on .Conrad which has been-written by' Hugh Wabole for Nisbet's "Writers of the Dav" series. Walpole styles Conrad a "Romantic Realist,", and says that his work has clearly ■' and profoundly influenced that of "all the movo interesting younger English novelists,"- amongst whom, I notice, he includes E. M. Forstoi(who'' wrote that remarkable, book "Howard's End'<), I). H. Lawrence, ,T. D. Bertsford. AT.. L.. George. Frank Swinnerton, Gilbert Cannan, Viola Meynell, and Brett Young. Mr. Walpole seems to think that in his later books romance is rising 'superior, in Conrad's mind, to reality. For my own. parr, I would place Con'rad's "Victory" in the very front rank of his work as, a novelist. His "Shadow Line," I 'confess, • was for me somewhat of-a disappointment. An Amvican Criticism-.Yof. Arnold Bennett. In a little book of literary essays, "Horizons," written by n„_clever American critic, Francis ;-Hackett; I find two admirable, articles on .Arnold Bennett's work as a'novelist, "The Old Wives' Tale" (unquestionably, to my mind, Ben-, nett's masterpiece) and ~ "Clayhanger" coming specially under consideration. Mr. Hackett seems to.have delved deeDer than any other American critic into Bennett's methods, aims,, and temperament. Apropos to the English novelist's naturalistic .. .treatment of charcter, Hackett writes:— ■ '.". "In Bennett there is a, suspicion of judg.mmit ort certain of his people vdiich per-, mits the affections to have sway. There are occasions when reason is transcended and a depth seen in character and in .personality which is as illimitable, ,as satisfying, as the depths of the sky. Before the immutable 'mysteries.: whetner of love, of intuition, of sex, of trrowth, and evolution, of decay and dissolution, this reasonable man is reasonable enough to aus-' pend reason. He 6tandß', uncovered, and unashamed, r.o longer the rintrmas'er of.a bourgeoisie easy to explain and to ridi,cule, but t'ie artist who is articulate in a revnrence which has no sanction in the ordinary traffic aud intercourse of life." The Bookman's Lucky Days., Some people do have wonderful luck in picking up odd and r,are books. In August' last a well-known New York antiquarian', bookseller look a holiday and went roaming roiind what Americans cull the "Hawthorne Country." Here is his curious experience as '-elated in a letter to the editor of the New York "Sun.".— "Stopped off at the Varney House ,near tho old home of Nathaniel Hawthorne the other day to get a light for my pipe. I was handed an old-fa6hioned lamplighter of rolled paper.-. After getting licht from stove- and talking to Mr. Vnrney I unroll-, ed the balance of the lighter and found tho following :'- " 'Taininerl "'by , ' " 'A Bosto "Asked if there happened to be any more old books in tho house. I was informed that there had been a couple and that although they hud been offered a dollar, for theni they had lost the address of party making offer, and when Uie paper was not at hand had used ono of thera up. Would I give them 60 cent 6 for the one left? "Well, what's the use of kicking? The other one was Thoreau'B 'Week' with the following note on flyleaf: 'Nat'l Hawthorne from Henry B. 'i'horcau.'—Yours truly. Charles P. Bveritt." 'Hlio reference to "Tammerl . . . by a Bosto ..." may bo somewhat cryptical to some of my readers 1 take it that the sourco of the lighter was a copy of ono of the rarest of American-pamph-lets, "Tammerlane and Other Poems by a Bostonian " a very tiny booklet of some forty pages, published at Boston in in an edition of only forty ciipiw, (lie author being Edgar Allan Pee. It was published anonymously, the author •concealing his identity oven from the publisher. Pod was then only 18. • Two years later, on his way to West Point, he visit-

Ed Baltimore and published .1 little voluine, now almost as rare as his , first booklet, entitled "Al. Aaraaf, Tammerlane, and Other Poems." A goo<l .copy of the booklet from which the holiday-making £ bookseller got his pipe-lighter woudd be worth to-day a . good ( hundred times' its . weight in gold. ( Ono of the luckiest -finds that "Lite" f can remember reading of was the late Profe-ror Dowden's discover,)', nil -a Dub- ( lin stireet stall, of a copy of tho exce,;- ' sively rare pamphlet, "An' Address to the ■ Irish People," copies of which Shelley threw to the people outside his window : when he was visiting Dublin. Dowden, ; if I remember-rightly, gave only two- , pence for his copy. A copy was sold at , Sotheby's in 1914 for .£140! .It is in this , pamphlet thr.t Shelley comes forward as one of the earliest advocates oi Home Mo and Catholiu Emancipation. ■ A Reconstruction Novel. ' .Oliver O'nioiis's.new story, "The New Moon " jiistpuWiflied in London by HodI dor ■ arid Stoughtnn, . puts forward some original and striking theories with regard to the mueh-di«cussed problem oi post-war rec'.vislruction I notice thai: G. I\. Chesterton-.dwciirwcs IJie story in his weekly London letter tn ,the New York "Run." G.K.C., who always puts things in a quaintly original way, objects to hnve -to .choose .between "two interpretations -. of reconstruction, of which ow is resolution and , the other merely repeti.'ion." fi.K.C. soys:— At one extreme we.have the mere vision of an earthly paradise, such p.s William Mori-is, with his poetic instinct For natne.3. called "News From Ncwhcrs." There the new moon is something of a blue moon; in the .sense of the old Kng-. lish proverb for what is rare .and remote. A blue moon might be among the most splendid of those wipphirc -spheres of the JHUonic imagination; there is nothing, wronf? with .i blue moon except that you have (.0 wait for it till all is blue. But at the other extreme there is- the social prediction which ,is only precise because it is lwrdly even progressive; as in tho Me of the Chinese tailor, who, when asked to mn-kc a new coat on the pattern, of an o!d mat,, copied all the old wrinkles and plains. . 1 Reconstruction, to be efiective nnd siic-i cessful, must prunaiily ba sane. It will l>e interesting to see how Oliver Onions sketches out a-possible social [.evolution. The Arm Chair General. ' Who has not suffered, in clubs, and in hotel.smoking-rooms, and on train and steamer journeys, from (hat dreadful bore, • a specially offensive product of the war, the "Armchair Genenil"?, In •his latest book, "Frenzied Fiction," Stephen Leacock .introduces 11s to a Canadian specimen of tho war-bore genus: -.— ; "The Eminent Authority looked round at the little group of us seated about him nt the club. He v:as telling us, or beginning to tell m, about the outcome, of. tho war. It was a thing we wanted to know. We were listening attentively. . • . •' 'I doubt very much,' lie said, 'whether Downing Street realises the enormous power which the. ftuai d'Orsay has over the Yildiz Kiosk.' " 'So do I,' J said, 'what is it?' "But he hardly noticed the interruption. " 'You've got to remember," he went on, 'that, from the point, of view of Hid Yildiz, the Wilhclmstrasse is just a thing of yesterday." "'Quite so,' I said. "fof course,' he .added, 'the Eallplatz is quite different." ■' 'Altogether dificrent.' 1 admitted. ' " 'And, mind you,' hu said, 'the Baliplatz itself enn be largely moved from the Quirinal through the Vatican.' '"Why, of course if can,' r agreed, with as much relief in my tone as I could put into it-. After all, what simpler way of moving the Ballplatz than that?" Other Times, Other Views, . In the April number of the "Quarteriy''Review, ''.Mr.'. J?. S..Eait shows hhw long "and. persistently Unalisu . writers wrote "ill: of the United States." Against what he deemed to bo . ill-natured and ovil-working misvepre^entation. Washington fevijig wrote very strongly in his "Sketch Boole.'- Lamenting the. "literary animosity daily growing up between England ,and America," Irving blamed the English writers for "instilling anger And reseiirmeiit into <he bosom of a youthful nation, to grow with its growth, nnd to strengthen with its strength." In n postscript to "Brncebridge Hall" he returned to tho- theme. He quoted from the- "Quarterly Review" a "generous text," -which he lamented "that publication shonld so often forget":— "There'is a sacred bond between us by blood and by language which'no circunintancea can break. Our literature must j always be theirs; and. Ihou'?h their law? arc no longer the sameas ours, we have , the same Bible, and. wo address one common Father in the same nr&yeT. Nations aro too ready to admit that they have natural enemies; why should Hiej l-e" lefs willing" to believe that they have natural friends? , "\. ■ Irving insisted that the people of the United States were not only the natural but' also the conscious and willing friends of the people of' Great Britain, but they had "been .rendered morbidly sensitive , by the -attacks mn'le upon their country by the English Press; and their occasional irritability on this subject has been misinterpreted ■ into a sett!e<l and unnatural hostility. , ' The friendship of which-Irving spoke was not much , more than courtesy, for he was not "so san■guinoas to believe that the two nations are ever to be bound together by any (romantic ties of feeling." Mrs. Trollope, mother of the novelist, . gave great offence , by her book of travels in the States, and we all know what a ■storm was caused by Dielcens's "American Notes." Dickens made the amende honourable a few years later, 'but-at first the wound wiis very sore. On (he other hand, it is only fair rb remember that in early and "mid-Victorian days the average American journalist dipped his pen in gall when he wrote of England and the English. To some extent this may have been due to a de-ire to catch the Irish Vote. Irishmen then, largely controlled the New York and Boston Press. Whatever may hnve contributed to the old ill-feeling—on both side.s—it has now disappeared, for ever I sincerely hope and trust. American authors have certainly nothing to complain cf in tho way of British' patro'liago of their books', and no' English author would to-day belittle the fine work done on the other side of the' Atlantic. Perhaps in the old days ■■ the copyright question had not a little to do with the British bitterness. Stray Leaves. Wα are all.getting just a liltle weary of war books, but there should be a bij; public for "The Principles of War,- , by Marshal Foch. the English translation of.which has been made by Mr. Hilnire Belloe. Tho work, which will bi>. illus-. Irated by numerous maps.and plans, lays down those theories of attack and defence j upon which.Marshal Fooh has conducted j his spleiulidlv successful campaign on .| tho Western front: Tlie Marshal himself contributes an introduction to the English edition. Amongst forthcoming novels of the English autumn-winter nublishing eeasims I note Mr. Stephen M'Kenna's new story, "Midas and Son," iii which tho iiuthnr introduces several of the characters which figured in his highly popular "Souia." Gilbert Cannan. whose last novel, "The Stucco House," dealing with Manchester life, wns, to my mind, a very dull prn- ■ (hiction. has a new slory. "Mummery." ready for-publication. Its subject is theatrical life in prts-war times. The forthcoming addition to Kegan Paul's excellent series, "The library oi Music and Musicians," are "French I Music nf To-day," by fi. Jean Aubry: "Mussorgsky." by M- W- Calvocorcs-i: x and "Oii Listening to mi Orthcslra," by < M. Montagu Nathan. No nindnrn English writer knows pans, and especially literary and Bohemian Paris better'than docs Arthur Synions. In hi.i latest book, "Colon-.- Studies in Paris," Syinnns doais with literary and flieatrical , life in pre-war Paris, nnd "ivDS chnraolor sketches of Stephen Jlal- ■> larme. Vcrlaine, Yveltc Giiilbert, _ Aristide Bruant, tlie fnrnoue chausonnicr ot

Montmartre, and oilier celebrities of la villo luniierc. . .lolin l.iino is publishing the Knijiifli edition of Mr. Locke's latest novel, "The Hough ltoaJ," to the-American edition of which 1 alluded a few weeks ago. It is some time since wo luid a novel from Lucas Malet's (Mrs. Harrison) pen. Mothuens announce her new story, "Deadham Hard," the scfiie of which is for the most part, laid in a.village on the Hampshire coast. That excellent Scots writer iVeil Munro will have a hew novel out with Blackwood's very shortly. The title is "Jaunty Jock."Marie Corel!!, who has not been heard from for some time, will come to light again very shortly with a new long novel, "The Young Diana," the story of a woman who regains her lost youth in a mysterious way. • "London Pride" is the title of a story of East End folk in wnr-timo by that clever writer Neil Lyons. ■ ' Some- of the American "best sellers"take themselves- very seriously. Thus, that 6ki)fnl compounder, of eacchnrine fiction, Gene Stratton Porter,' writes, apropos to, her last book, "A Daughter .of the Land": Through my naturo. work I came upon. "Freenles," but- this book is an older nistor. The war has stripped, us all-of tho potty conventions of.life and brought ub down to saving crumbs ■ and wearing patches. It has chanted our lives, our thoughts, our hearts. Why not admit that 'it has cha'mr.pd mo as..much as the'rest of the world?" x This is almost, if nqt o.uite, equal to anything Jiv. Hair Caine or that onetime "best seller." but [.-iwcnt-dav back numlier, Mario Cbrelli. could, produce inthe way of aelf-satisfacUon, '