Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-08-01
RIDER HAGGARD AND ANDREW LANG.
Their Joint Story an Attempt to Revive
the Popularity of the First Named.
Especial Correspondence


Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, July 29-It is understood in
literary circles that the latest romance of
Rider Haggard is desperate attempt on
his part to gain his lost popularity. The
subject ought to afford person of great
powers of imagination superb opportun-
ity, for it is understood that he will tell
the story of Ulysses and Helen of Troy. or
in short will try his hand at tale which
Homer has made immortal In making
this tale immortal Homer made himself of
eternal fame. so that Mr. Gladstone and
the late Lord Derby were of the same Opin-
ion. which was that Homer. the narrator,
was a greater man than any of the heroes
whose story he told.
Mr.. Hagsard is to have the assistance of
Mr.. Andrew Lang and in the first INSTALL
ment of the story, which is called The
Worlds Desire" the hand of Mr.. Lang is
decidedly prominent He has written two
poems which appear in this installment,
and one of them is as good a, anything he
ever did. Some years ago we had case of
joint authorship which became quite
famous. This was in the series of Sake
Holme stories which appeared in one of
the magazines. One of the authors fur
nished delicious poetry, while the other
wrote the prose tale The authorship has
always been regarded as more or less of a
mystery, although it is generally conceded
that Mrs Helen Hunt Jackson was the poet
of the combination. If the Haggard-L Lang
combination succeeds as well as the Sake
Holme collaboration did, Mr. Haggard will
| indeed have recovered his prestige.
In the opening installment of this new
story it does not appear that Haggard has
done any better than he did with Cleo
patra" That was a story which was much
heralded and was pretty widely circulated,
because it appeared in serial form in many
newspapers in this country and in Great
Britain. Some of the critics professed to
find in Cleopatra" evidence that Haggard
had recovered his grip, but for the reading
public which had been fascinated by Hag-
CARDS earlier tales the story contained lit
tie charm. One of the newspapers of this
country which published it was satisfied
that it had fallen fiat with its readers, and
there was no manifestation in its counting
loom that the story had excited ripple of
interest.
Haggard's loss of popularity was sud
den. 1t was due to two causes. One was
a woful falling off in inventive power, and
the other was the accusation and proof
that Mr.. Haggard vis a deliberate plagia-
rist The FOrtnighily Review, in an elab-
crate article, exposed a large number of
his plagiarisms, and for while his only
friend ana supporter among the literary
men of Great Britain was Andrew Lang.
Mr., Lang had some personal pride in Hag-
cards career, tor he claimed to have been
the first to discover Haggard's talent.
There is no doubt that interest has been
stimulated somewhat bv the connection of
Mr.. Lang with Mr. Haggard in collabora-
ton Lang is one of the most brilliant
men of the lighter sort in English litera-
ture, "A delightful essayist and poet but
has never revealed any capacity for ro-
nance or narrative writing.
Publishers in this country have been
fighting shy for a year or so of Mr.. Hag-
CARDS books. Some of his latest novels
did not sell sufficiently here to pay the cost
of publication, and the larger publishers
had come to consider him as "A mere tias h
in the pan, whose day is over and whose
books would not sell. There seems to
have been somewhat similar feeling
among the English reading public, and ii
became necessary for Haggard to do some
thing to restore to his books their selling
capacity. The audacity of attempting to
rival Homer, so TO speak, will of course
give some advertisement to the new novel;
but literary men regard it as "A most peril
Gus undertaking. If the work is failure
it probably means the end of Haggard As q
popular romanticist but if it should
happen TO be "A success it means brilliant
future for the unique creator of king
SolomOn's Mines" +. J. EDWARDS.