LITERARY NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 117, 20 May 1939, Page 20

LITERARY NOTES

BOOKS AND AUTHORS

"In Search of Peace" is the title of a book by Mr. Neville Chamberlain. It is based on his speeches on the subject of peace.

Mr. John Masefield is now busy writing the promised sequel to his fascinating novel, "Dead Ned." Other book hews" from London is that Sir Philip Gibbs' is writing a sequel to "Ordeal in England"; Jacob Epstein is writing his biography, and-Sir John Squires is preparing another book of reminiscences to be called "Water Music."

"What new model verbs and pronouns, split infinitives, interpolated prepositions, traffic-sign nouns, and buried verbs, our grammar seems to have about as much stability about it as a French franc, or a Japanese treaty, or an over-the-counter share in gold mine, or any other up-to-date phenomenon," says Mr. Stephen Leacock.

. Richard Church, the novelist and .poet, has come to the conclusion that today the memory of the public is shorter and its intellectual appetite more j aded> than in .the days of Queen Victoria. For'thenj Once an author had arrived, he remained In the favour of the public for the rest of a writing life. Now he lives; precariously from book to book, and risks much if he courts that favour over a single book into a sequel.

Two years ago the Library Association decided to award annually a medal for the best children's book published each year. The book is chosen by the vote of children's librarians in Great Britain, and for 1938 the award goes to "The Circus is Coming," by Noel Streatfield, which is published by Den,t. Miss Streatfield, already well known as a novelist, has written two other children's books, "Ballet Shoes" and "Tennis Shoes," which have been immensely popular.

Books for 1939 to be published by the Australian Limited Editions Society are "The Life and Times of Captain John Piper," a story of early Australian life written specially by Misses Barnard-Eldershaw, authors of "A House Is Built"; and "The Romance of the Swag and Other Stories" from Henry Lawson, with woodcuts by Lionel Lindsay, who will also write a foreword. Last year's books were sent to the World's Fair in New York to represent Australian fine printing.

The suit brought by Houghton, Mifflin 9 and Co., owners of the American copyright in Herr Hitler's "Mem Kampf," to restrain Stackpole and Sons from publishing an unauthorised edition of the book ended at the beginning of March, when the Court refused to grant an injunction. Both the promised unexpurgated editions of "Mem Kampf" were published on that day. They vary considerably. The Stackpole edition is a literal translation, while that issued by Reynel and Hitchcock (by arrangement with the copyright owners) is a fairly free, annotated translation made by a group of trained writers.

According to an Australian friend who spent some time with the Priestleys in England recently, J. B. Priestley may come out here in the not so far distant future, says the "Australasian." He has been travelling widely of late years—"The Doomsday Men" and others of his recent novels reflect sojourns in America—and he is keenly interested in Australia and anxious to see this country. The idea in his mind to bring a company out to produce some of his plays would mean his daughters accompanying him, for they are members of those "good companions" who tread the boards in his company of players in England.