A LITERARY LOG.

Southland Times, Issue 18853, 19 June 1920, Page 11

A LITERARY LOG.

f ABOUT BOOKS & BOOKMEN. ] V ■ I r* - ■

(By “Iota”)

June 19, 1920. In old Virginia.—Marion Harland knows her “old Virginia” well and in her latest novel “The Carringtons of High Hill” she gives us a dignified and interesting picture of life in that charming State before the Civil War. The publishers of the work, Chas. Scribner and Sons, state that the authoress is the only writer actively engaged whose experience goes hack to the plantation life of the Old South befo’ de war and one is, therefore, prepared to accept her description of the people and habits of the time as authoritative. The story told in the book is rather thin, but it is not without interest. The principal attraction in the book, however, is its picture of a social life that has passed away. In her dedication of the novel to Charles Scribner, the authoress mentions her forty years’ experience of the firm and her skilled work gives ample proof of her lengthy experience with the pen. The story deals with the “skeleton in the cupboard” of the dignified Carrington family, in the shape of a bright French-Ameri-can woman from New Orleans who married into a Presbyterian family in Virginia and found herself temperamentally unsuited to the life there. She deserted hr husband with feelings of bitter resentment and after a career that did her no credit, returned under an assumed name to revenge herself upon the High Hill family, where her daughter was just reaching womanhood. Death intervened in time to protect the innocent child from the results of her attack, and the story ends with the revenge unaccomplished. My copy of this interesting story comes from Whitcornbe and Tombs, through Ilyndman’s. A Charming Child’s Book.—Harold Gaze, the author of “Coppertop” has the advantage of having a pen that will write and illustrate. He is a teller of a delightful story of a child’s dream, in which a Book of Travels carries her over the house-tops to the Far-Away-Beyond and takes her to adventures in many parts of the world of men and fairies. It is a Peter Pa-unish book full of quaint things and unexpected delights— and now and again one comes across a touch of Lewis Garroil, especially in one or two verses, such as

Myself and a Nautilus Hut, to sea In a beautiful ship of purple shell. And the Nautilus smiled In the highest glee. But I felt far from well. Fur a storm came on— As storms will do— And rocked our ship F'ro and to, Fro and to, And to and fro, The way that shell ships Flock, you know. The continuation of this little poem Is even better than the beginning and it gives one a fair irlea of the genera! merit of Mr Gaze’s work. Ihe illustrations, especially the coloured ones, are a dtdight and really "Goppertop" is a .highly desirable book for young folk. My copy came from Wlntcombe and Tombs, through Hyndrnan's. Stevenson 3 Wife.-- Fo those* who po??'c?' It. L. s worU.s ainl hi?' “letters, *’ the news that the “Life of Mrs Robert Ixmis Stevenson'' hxs been published will be interesting. The book i.- the work of Mrs Stevenson's sisier, Mrs Nellie Van De Grift Sanchez. She states that the De Grifts were Swedes who went to America in the seventeenth Centura'. The novelist’s wife was born in I*4o, and was baptised by the fain ous preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, in the White River in tiie presence of several thousand visitors. When only seventeen, gl.e married Samuel Osi .otirne, the union proving a most, unhappy one. Lloyd Osbourne. who collaborated with R.L.S. in one Btory, was the i.-sue of the lirst marriage. She lirst met R.L.S. at Grez. a little village near Fontainebleau, whither the novelist had gone to stay with his cousin "Bob" Stevenson, the artist. When she returned to California she was divorced from Osbourne and married Stevenson at Montroy, the honeymoon being spent in the Silverado Woods, of whose quiet, re-tfui charm ihe novelist Wrote in hi,-. "Silverado Squatters.’’ She Survived her husband several years, dying •l, Santa Barbara in EH4. Her cremated remains repose at the foot of Steven-on’s tomb on the summit, of Mount Vaea, near Apia. Some New Publications.- Cassells and Co. make some mtere.-ruig announcements in their Spring and; Summer List. Amongst some not ini,, items are "My Fighting Life," by the gr--at I- r-nch boxer, Georges Cart>cu;icr: "A i ’a imn.iry o! Napoleon and His Times in the bight o; Modern Research,’’ by H. N. Richardson; an Kngiish edition of "Germany of To-day and To-morrow,’' by Herr Ebert, Fre-aden; c i the German Republic; and Colonel John Ward’s account of Irs Siberian experiences with "The Diehards.” Scheer’s "Germany’s High Sea Fleet in the World War" is already on sale in New Zealand. Amongst new Cassell novels are H. A. Vaeiieli’s "Whitewash," Mrs C’vnthia Sfocklev’s "Rink Gods and Blue De mens" (a tale of the Kimberley diamond fields 1 , Mis's Ethel M. Dell’s, new imig story, "The Top of lie* World." and Compton Mackenzie's new story (said to be in his old "Carnival'' vein > entitled "The Vanity Girl." Constables nre announcing a "Life of Sir Stanley Mamie"; "Thfodore Roosevelt, an Intimate Biography," by W. R. Thayer; “Frederick Locker I, innsnn," by his son inlaw, the Right Hon. Augustine Birrell ; and an Kngiish translation "f an important German work on "John Sebastian Bach. His Life, Art. and Works." The same firm announces "Colonel Hepington’s Personal Keminiscenccs o[ the Great War, and Dark Water." an important study by W. B. Du Eiiis. dealing with the place of the dark gates in the modern world.