BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Otago Witness, Issue 4032, 23 June 1931, Page 65

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

In Jack Hobbs’s story of his test matches, “ Playing for England I ” there is a foreword by Thomas Moult.

Over £lOO,OOO has now been secured by the sales of the British Legion Book, which was published last year under the auspices of the Prince of Wales.

There is announced the forthcoming publication of “ Beaverbrook: An Authentic Biography,” by a Canadian, Mr F. A. Mackenzie.

The translators of “ The Confessions of Zeno,’’ by Italo Svevo, announce a translation of his novel “ Senilita,” which will be called, in English, “ A Man Grows Older.” a

Mr Hugh Walpole, on his recent cruise to the West Indies, had as a fellow-trav-eller Major P. C. Wren, the author of “ Beau Geste.” * * ¥

Five Caxton volumes from the library of York Minster have been sold for £20,000 to provide funds for urgent repair work upon the fabric of the Minster. It has now been revealed that Dr A. S. W. Rosenbach, the American book collector, was the purchaser of the volumes.

Mr Henrik Pontoppidan, the Danish novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature ifi 1917, has been seriously injured in a street accident in Copenhagen. He is 73 years old.

One is surprised to find that the next volume of the “ Notable British Trials ” series will be “ The Trial of Alfred Arthur Rouse,” edited by Helena Normanton. This volume will be followed bj’ “ The Trial of Sidney Harry Fox,” edited by F. Tennyson Jesse.

“ The Spirit of British Policy and the Myth of the Encirclement of Germany,” by Professor Hermann Kantorowiez, has been translated for an English edition.

A book which will help students of the New Testament to realise something of the society in which the early Church found itself is announced. This is entitled “The World of the New Testament,” by Dr T. R. Glover, famous scholar and widely-read author of “ The Jesus of History.”

Forthcoming books include “ The Emergence of Life,” by John Butler

Burke, a treatise on mathematical philosophy and symbolic logic by which a new theory of space and time is evolved.

J. E. Buckrose, who last year wrote a novel based upon the life story of Oliver Goldsmith, has now written another, founded upon the life of George Eliot. Every incident in the story is founded upon some indication in George Eliot’s letters or diaries. The book is to be published under the title “ Silhouette of Mary Ann.”

Forthcoming books include “People of the Leaves,” by Vivian Meik, describing the strange remnant of a forgotten race of pygmies in the Bengal jungle; and “ Colonel Hawker’s Shooting Diaries,” compiled from the journal which he kept for many years and a collection of letters, recently discovered.

Miss Grace Thompson, whose book, “ The First Gentleman,” dealing with the life of George IV recently appeared, is the daughter of an admiral.- She was born at Portsmouth, and was educated at the Royal Naval School. Dur ing the war she served in the W.A.A.C

Mr W. B. Seabrook has as his hobby the study of survivals of occultism, magic, and sorcery. In his book “ The Magic Island ” he gave some account of voodooism in Haiti. “Jungle Ways,” another of his books soon to appear, is a record of remarkable experiences among the Ivory Coast tribes, which he had visited in his search for new information about sorcery.

Mr Thomas Burke, whose latest book is “ The Pleasantries of Old Quong,” started writing when he was fourteen and an office boy in London. At sixteen he sold his first story for a guinea. Since 1912 he has published over a dozen books. His wife, formerly Miss Winifred Wells, is also an author, and writes under the name of “ Clare Cameron.”

Dr Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer, is said to have discovered a book dating from 100 n.c. during his recent expedition to China. The book consists of 78 wooden leaves bound together with string. Professor Bernhard Karlgren, of the University of Gothenburg, is to try to decipher the writing.

Mr Wyndham Lewis’s'new’ book “ The Diabolical Principle,” described as “ an assault upon the politicisation of art,” includes a section, entitled “ The Dithyrambic Spectator,” in which the author analyses the theories Of Professor Elliot Smith and the late Miss Jane Harrison, and attacks the “ back to primitive life ” movement.

Mr Richard Blake Brown, author of “ Miss Higgs and Her Silver Flamingo,” was for three years a clergyman before he resigned under the Clerical Disabilities Relief Act. For some time he was a curate at Portsea, where he had the novel idea of taking a blackboard into the pulpit to help to explain his addresses. The notice which he sent round to his friends announcing his resignation was accompanied by a poem written by himself to celebrate the occasion! Mr Brown, although he is not yet 30, has also been a schoolmaster and has acted for a season at the Old Vic.