THE YOUNG NOVELIST

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 962, 3 May 1930, Page 10

THE YOUNG NOVELIST

FIRST BOOK AT ELEVEN A TALE OF CEYLON Tired o£ having nothing to do while waiting for a vacancy in a European school in Ceylon, Maurice Wiltshire, a happy and high-spirited boy of 11, decided to write a novel. And having finished the novel, he sent it to his grandfather, Mr. L. W. Stephens, of Hampstead. Wiyi the delicious confidence of youth, he instructed his grandfather to find a publisher for the novel. Being a sympathetic—and obedient—grandfather, Mr. Stephens set to work and the result is the publication by Messrs. Jarrolds, of “Billy in Ceylon.” It is an astonishing book. It will delight all boys and most girls, because it is such very good fun, full of adventures on board a great liner, and with glimpses of the kind of life an English boy leads in Ceylon when his father accepts an appointment in that fascinating country. UNEDITED MANUSCRIPT

The book is entirely the work of young Maurice Wiltshire. Written in a childish, but a very good hand, it is quite unaltered, and was sent to the printers in its original condition. “Nearly three years ago my son-in-law, who is an electrical engineer, accepted a Government contract in Ceylon, and decided to take his wife

and two children with him,” Mr. Stephens said to an English interviewer. “Maurice was then at the William Ellis School in Kentish Town, and I have no doubt that his old schoolmates, and many people in Hampstead, where X have lived for 50 years, will be interested in the book. “Members of a tennis club in Colombo used to spend warm summer evenings reading the novel in manuscript. “They found it so amusing that it was circulated among them as a novel from a lending library might have been. “Until he went to Ceylon. Maurice was more interested in drawing than in writing, and he had never been a great reader. But he writes very good letters, and while waiting until arrangements could be made for him to go to school in the hills, he amused himself by writing this book. “BLUE BLOODED BUCCANEERS” “He was very much impressed by life on the Orient liner Oronsay, on which he made the journey to Ceylon, and his account of the doings of the ‘Blue Blooded Buccaneers’:—the little company which his hero formed on board ship—has given me many a laugh, and will, I think, amuse every grown-up.

“In his last letter Maurice told me that he intended to write another novel, which he means to call ‘Bill Among the Ancient Britons.’ “The boy is now only 12 years of age, and when he knew that I had been able to find a publisher for him I do not think he was much impressed.