LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 197, 15 May 1920, Page 11

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK

"Liber" frequently hears liis fellowbookmen lamenting: the high prices charged for new books and indulging freely in tho Englishman's proverbial right to grumble. But ho must not blamo the bookseller, for local prices are governed by tlio London cost and the paper shortage, and the increased exponso of bulling' and of book production generally aro all apparently unavoidable. But why don't bookmen who love really good literature-turn to some , of the older books? Take, Cor instance, Hilairo Bollocks essays, such as "Hills and the Sea, "On Something," "On Everything," "On Nothing," and others which couldi be mentioned. ■ You can buy these books even nowadays for a modest half-crown apiece, just as you can some of the earlier E. V. Lucas books. Save that the paper is not 60 good—the print is tho samo as in the best editions thG6O half-crown books are just a§ good as the original issues, for which "Liber" (who would rather go without tobacco for a week or two than miss a new Belloc) paid five or sis shillings. With a set of Belloo books—l dont mean his war books-on the shelf, tho long winter evenings, even in the most remotest of back-blocks, could be faced with °nuanimity. Let my friends follow Hazlitfs advico:—"When a new book comes out 'read an old one"—especially now that tho new book so often makes too heavy a demand on one's purse. Oscar Wilde's Essays and Poems, most of his witty and always readable plays, and selections from Chesterton and) other clever "moderns" can all be had for a modest half-crown, in neatly bound cloth volumes fit for any bookshelf. Something akin .to. positive consternation has prevailed amongst American bibliophiles and dealers in rare books over the terrible slump in values which was chronicled in connection with the Wallace sale in MaTch. Tho collection was expected to bring at least ,£60,000, but only realised half that amount. One explanation put forward was the death of Mr. G. D. Smith, who has been called the American Quaritch. Another is that the big dealers boycotted the sale because of some new and irksome terms as to credit. Whatever the exact reason, values slumped to quite a remarkable extent. Perhaps the American millionaires'who have been buying rare books .which they never read, but only desire to possess out of a spirit of vulgar ostentation, have tired of their excursions into the. hibliophilio arena. The forthcoming new Kipling volume will consist mainly of reprinted sketches of travel in Egypt and Canada, some of them dating back as far as 1913. Gilbert Frankau, aathor of that clever parody—or latter-day variant of "Don Juan"—"One of Us," which is the versi-fied-biography' of a pre-war "nut, had a curious experience in connection with his latest novel, "Peter Jackson, Cigar Merchant." Frankau served two years

at the front as a gunner, and was then invalided home with' shell-shock. When sufficiently recovered ho sent for his typist-secretary, and dictated his atory from his rough notes and scenario. Then came a Telapse, and it was three months before he was allowed to resumo literary work. Ho was handed a tiny parcel and a letter in which his secretary explained that she had'left her notes and notebook on a tablo in her room, and that a servant, thinking they were of no value, had burned them! Luckily the scenario did not share that but tho novelist had to write his story all ovor again. And the second time he did not employ tho dictation method. It wns not until nearly the end of 1919 that the second version was completed, when tho story rmi as a serial in "Land and Water." Christopher Motley, whoso "Parnassus on Wheels" and "The Haunted Bookshop'"iwere 6uch jolly 'books, has written n new story "Kathleen" by name, tho scene of which is laid in Oxford. Morley was one of the first of the American Rhodes Scholars to go to Oxford, and in his book of essays, Shandygafi, there is more than one graceful tribute to the charm of the ancient seat of learning on the Isis, "Kathleen" is very veil reviewed in American papers of recent date. It is to be hoped flint the book won't bo nuito so long in finding its way to New Zealand, as were Mr. Morley s earlier stories, for ho is a young writer of great originality, and his work deserves to be better known out here than it is. . . , Some industrious literary dipper and delver" has been busying himself with unearthing references to football in the works of early English writers, and has senll: 6ome of his finds to John o Ix>ndon's Weekly. Shakespeare was not overcomplimentary. Here is a passage from "King Lear": Lear: Do you bandy looks with me, vou rascal? /Striking him. Steward: I'll not be Etruken. my lord. Kent: Nor trinned neither, you base fontball player. TTrirmne up his heels. ioar: I thank thee, fb-llow. Tusser, the grazier poet; Chaucer, Edmund Waller, and Barclay, in "The Ship of Fools," all allude to football. I can snare spaco only for Dryden's unmistakable reference to "Rugger." As thus: Then for a scrimmai?e, arid applauses loud. The separate forces on each other crowd! Till, haply, too hard pressed with friendly One tumbles nrone, a football to his foes! Ho rises (Hiick, the bully back to cay— With sudden rush his side has gained the day. An account of a "Rugger" match in Elizabethan or Stuartian times would be a grand bibliOphilic find. But so far it lias never materialised.