The Bookfellow.

Manawatu Herald, 27 April 1899, Page 2

The Bookfellow.

Tlip Bulletin Newspapsrg Onmnnny of Sydney are now issuing « mon'hly Migiiz'melet, for bo khuveri and book reader', which ihe t \ •dv-iti-e "-is .sold for love and thron o-n-p." Tha third a umber, for Match, is a very interesting one and full of ilMietraiioos. A p-irfcrair. is'tvon d Mrs Curlewis nee Ehd Turn-'r, and also an interesting d scrip ion of her work, from which w<» (ak^> the following : — " One find-" !<Mipl Turner at home in a co't^g^ a Mo-man, on the shores of Sydney Harbour, looking toward* the sea.

Though now merged in the stream of Australian life and literature, it

it was near Djncaater, in Yorkshire,

England that our children's storyteller was birn, and .from England

she camo at eight years of age to be educated at that famou9 square

brick building in Elizabeth-street. Sydney— the Hia;h School for Girlffl — which has nourished so many briflfht yonnj? hope* and efforts. Even at Bchool E:hel Tnrner wrote h orie.s ; with her sister Lilian,, nuhir of •• The LigbU of Sydney," s hd odited the timid Iris, a schoolgirls' magazine ; and later ther was another magazine, Th« Parthenon* '" over which much anxious ink warn spilt. It wa3 when she wrote her " Children's Page " in ihe Illustrated Sydney Newt that Ethel Turner's real literary life commenced ; and wben><F the News died the fanciful converse- ) tional commentary on little people's ways wa3 transferred to Sydney , Town and t'ountry Journal, where it i 3 still continued over the signature |of •' Dame Durden." In 189* I " Seven Little Australian " waa^ published by Ward, Lock, an** Bowden, Ltd., and since then the busy pen h&g has never rested. We have recently heard much of the tha trouble which spring from 11 pursuing literature in Australia " ; but the quiet persistence of the small figure at the desk in the Bed Road Country, writing and destroying destroying and writing again, perfecting sfyle and art, and winning at last a well deserved success, holds a lesson for many an ambitious author who refuses to learn that the second • bpst of genius, the best taient t is the . capacity for taking pains. And Ethel Turner has kept on as well as she began. An approximate list of her books and their sales read —

Seven Little Australians, 1894, seven editions, 30,000 ; The Family at Misrule, 1895, four edition?, 15,---000 : The story of a Baby, 1895, two editions, 10,000 ; The Little DucheßS 1896, two editions, 6,000; The Little Larrikin, 1&96, two editione, 16,000; Miss Bobbie, i 897, two edition?, 16.000; The Camp at Wandinong, 1898, one edition, 12,---000.

A total of 115,000 copies of the books conceived in one brain, written by one pen, sold in five years ; thif h Lhe real literature in Australia— and rhe attainment. Nor is there a quality cavil to insinuate ; for the books which have sold best, though not pretending to the high plane of intellectual or imaginative aobiaVemfnf, are nmong the few charming stories written for and about child* ren ; . in their cUb* can one name better ? Ethf-1 Turner wag fortunate in her choice of publishers ; she is a good woman of-bu9iness ; and she does not rest on her laurels of bet income. This year's book " Tbreo Lu:le Maid.*," iB being print- d for Christmas publication ; next year 1 * book is bying written ; " I fiod .it no trouble to write a bo >k a year^OWa of my books that is," the author confos ci apologetically. " Smut (lays indeed the pen will not writ* : you pit down and make sketches on the blotting paper, Bat as a rule I go to my ro>m about ten o'clock,, and noou or so I have done my days 1 work. So many days* work taf? a chapter ; go many chapteis to abrok —a regular literary arithmetic. 11 ; Latterly the arithmetic baa . not ben quite co easy ; for a 8m»Il daughter, with a pronounced tasfce for scribbliog, has intercepted the methodical dip in the ink-bottle. Nearly three yeara ego Ethel Turner. married Mr H. R. Curlewie, a Sydney barrister and old-tiraa con* tributor to Tfie Parthenon. i

" Unarming stories written for and about children "'— there is hardly necessity to define Ethel-.Turaer's work farther. Even her bboksmore especially designed for older read em might be included in the ■ariia definition. For though her chatm never leaves her, it iB only faftr childi'h characters who are fully realised — made lifelike, genuine, con- " vincing. Ehel Turner's "grownups " are still childish characfcera— bave some quaint air of delTghtful boys and girls masquerading in ihair elders' clothes. She h%9 the key of the children's paradise only. That is enough ; but tberu ia one person in the world who demands more, and her name it Ethel Turner. " I am so tirrd of writing children's book 1 ?," she say "I do wish to write a biff book." Sf» phe is trying.