LIBER'S NOTEBOOK

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 191, 8 May 1920, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTEBOOK

The Christmas "Bookman," supplies of which have .now, made a rather belated, appearance in the Wellington-bookshops, is a quite astonishing production. Mr. •St, John Adcock, the editor, and Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton,: who publish, the "Bookman," seem to have been determined on gating all their old records. A specialfeature is a series of portraits in coloured, chalks, by Mr. R. J. Swan, of some of the leading writers of the pre-sent-day school, including H. G. Wells, Stephen M'Kenna, Frank Swynnerton, .and . Sheila , Kayo-Smith . among6t the , novelists, and Viola • Meynell, Patrick Macgill. and John Drinkwater amongst the poets, t A portrait of Daisy Ashford, of "Young Visitors" fame, is also in-' . eluded. -...-. A- number of special articles,' and- innumerable reviews of new and notable 'books aro accompanied by an .almost bewildering. wealth'of illustrations.... Book lovers-should secure, copies withoiit delay, as the supply is limited, ■and these special numbers, so well worth ■ permanent- preservation, are never re,printed. .." .' ' ' •'.;'. "Quick March," the monthly magazine/; published in connection with .the -Returned Soldiers' Association, is now, I understand, 'a couple of years old. It was only the other day, however, that '■Liber" ■ made 'acquaintance with, what . is.Teallv a .most interesting publication, ; well worthy of the attention of all who are interested in encouraging New Zealand literary talent. Under the editor-ship-of Mr. Dick Harris, who before the war,l" remember as the author of some : very graceful verse, "Quick- March" now, includes articles on many subjects : ..btheiv than military history and defence :matters. .' There is, for instance, an excellent pago headed "New : Zealand. Life and Colour," ; somewhat. '~' but ' not altogether, on the . .lines'-'of the- well-known "Aooriginalities" in the "Bulletin." There is more ■ than one.story of old New Zealand life; an-informative essay, "The Problem of - ExfchanKe," by P. W. Professor ~ ; at Victoria College; a capital "swagiuan story" by Claude Jewell, and a fino character sketch of D'Annunzip. "Quick March," which is to. be congratulated upon the celebration of its second birthday, bids fair to develop 'in-time into an excellent allround literary magazine, whilst : ever maintaining, a. direct interest in the welfare .-.of .the returned soldiers. It'is a wonderfully- cheap sixpenny worth. Dorothy Richardson's novels—the latest is called "Interim"—are, I read, enjoying a vogue in England with those who want to be "right in" the modern literary movement, as one'critic expresses it. Miss Richardson introduces a novelty in fiction in her trick of. dispensing entirely with quotation marks in her dialogue, ■ which Eho "runs on" in tho'' seneral. narrative without any paragraph breaks or inverted commas. I confess I find this trick not a little irritating. If ; this sort of thing be approved of by tho'"modern literary movement,"l prefer not- to .bo "right in it." . .Oh,', those ever smart Yankee "professors of literature," who profess more i knowledge of literature than they possess! One "Professor Walter C. Philips, of Columbia' University, has, I see, perpetrated a book entitled "Dickens, Reade, and Collins, a study on the conditions (tnd theories of-novel-writing in Victorian , England."-' The professor starts, off very ' badly, in. his study of Dickens' (whoso work .lie- belittles), for ho makes ■ the dreadful "bloomer" of> declaring that "Pickwick" was founded upon a collection of sporting pictures by George Cruikshanks, and that the artist committed suicide- before the second monthly part appeared. As a matter of fact, Cruikshanks neither suggested "Pickwick", nor drew a single illustration for ' that' immortal work, the artist (for the first two parts) being Seymour, who was succeeded by "Phiz" (Rablot K. Browne). Also Dickens did not "write up" to Seymour's sketches. This course was suggested to him by the publishers, but from the outset Dickens insisted upon tho author being paramount, and not tho artist. There is quite a big literature upon this subject, and the so-called Seymour claim (put forward by his widow) was umplv disproved and disposed of nt tho time." What this Yankee "know-all" says . about Wilkio Collins is even sillier than his verdict on Dickens. Collins may ' have been a sensational writer, but . where in all American fiction of to-day and the past can be found a finer character study than that of Count Fosco in "The Woman in White"? ' - ' Keith Preston is an American poet who can enshrine happy satire in graceful verso. Thus, in "The Heroes of Fiction," he speculates pleasantly as to how H. Q. Wells would rr-writo tho nursory ballad, "Jack and Jill":— 1 Our "Jack and Jill," that simple tab; How Mother Goose (lid sliclit it! Ah how her careless lines would pale If H. a. Wells should write it! First take tho hour when Jack was lioin, How anxious papa waited; Dcscribo that aco -with hitter scorn- • Tell how Jack'B parents mated. Then analyse Jack's infant bean, "Recount his careful schooling; Sketch Jill's arrival on ths scene, And paint their childish fooling. State how the buckets wuro procured: . (Describe a bucket shop), See how the ill-starred pair were lured To tempt tho fatal drop. Give all tho croakings ere the soil!; Tho vords of faithful granny. Depict tho aspect, of that hill With every coiun and cranny. |_

Toll how they clambered up the dope, Observing all the strata, And canvassed- Enßland's futuro liopo, With, economic data. Say how tho first misstep was Jill's, Poor Jack fell down liko Adam; They hit the road beneath the hill— (The pavement was macadam). Mr. E. T. Raymond's clever iharacter sketches of public men of tho day, published a year or so ago undor the title of "Uncensored Celebrities," have now a successor, "Ail and Sundry." Raymond, who is now the editor of "The Outlook," has a nitty, if sometimes bitter, pen. Hero is an extract from tho Kipiing "sketch":—"Mr. Kip. ling conquered every circle. Literary men dwelt on the perfection of his method, and rather rashly assumed a permanent valuo for much that was little - more than clever instantaneous photoi irrnphy. Some Churchmen praised his i religious poems in language which might 1 seem a little extravagant for Isaiah. ■ Tho suburban young- man murmured >• Tusizy- Wuzzy' or 'Gentleman Rankers' ' whilo he shaved, and vaguely felt himself ; n man of action. The young lady of Streatham revelled in tho dawn coming up liko thunder out of China 'crost thu bay, and experienced a thrill of splendid wickedness when she came to Suez and the exploded Ten Commandments. There never was such a boom before. There lias been none since." Says a-writer in the American "Bookman" :— Tho path of the book'collector it not always strewn with roses. No sooner docs he become known as cherishing an unusual loncinc for books that are old and rare than some aged acouaintance soizes him by the arm and saye: "I would ills* to have you see an old book I have. It is a Bible that has been in our family for •i lr , ce > or ,., four , eenorations. All the f's in it look hke ss. It must bo. more than a rA ei ? Mrs oW'" But by this timo the collector has (led. How well "Liber" knows that worthv possessor of an old Bible-or his New • 'l, n , d P r " tot yP«- -And tho worst of it is that when -on go to a lot of trouble and plough through tho .indexes of?»Book Prices Current" or "Book Auction Records and then identify tho visitor's rare old book' as having no commercial value, the inquirer seems quite annoyed and actually goes away with a "grouch" against you.for telling him the truth It cannot too often be said that it floes not necessarily follow that because a book is, say, a hundred or even three hundred years old it must bo valuable.