The San Francisco call., 1897-07-18

| AhS CcAiiicT OtlItuuB
last year more than II 900 marks among the
INDECENT families OF authors.
Thomas Nelson Page, who is working on q
long novel, has sailed for the Mediterranean
and will remain abroad until the autumn.
Zangwlll is responsible for the statement
tn at Oliver schreiner, of Trooper Peter Halker
OF Mashonaland' fame. is OF Jewish origin.
| The British and Foreign Blind Association
propose printing in embossed type volume
containing DR.. NanseI's story of his explora-
ttons.
1t is estimated that Nansen will clear a
round $150O00 from his book. There are
German, French, Dutch and Bohemian traUs-
} lations.
Ian Maclaren will give or two religious
books to his publishers before long. His latest
novel is called 1.-THE House by the Houf and
| will first appear as serial in England.
! Miss Annie Alden, daughter of Mr. Alden OF
! the firm OF Harper & Brothers, read the manu-
| script OF 'Trilby" for the firm, pronounced on
! its possibilities and advised its acceptance.
F. Marion Crawford, who has before this
/ given public read ings from his novels, is next
| winter to deliver a series of lectures upon
| Italian art, at the same time reading from his
novels.
| Dr. S. Weir Mitchells serial story, "Hugh
| Wynne, Free Quaker" which has been run
| ming in the Century magazine, will be pub
lished in book form by the Century Company
| in the autumn.
| Edna Lyall has two novels almost ready.
| One is seven teen tn century story, after the
fashion of SIN the Golden Days." and the
other tale appearing in serial form, en-
| titled "Wayfaring Men"
"Kailyard" version of the Song of Solo,
mon is about to be issued by North country
| firm of publishers. verse in the last chap
| ter will read, we understand, as follows:
| "Mony waters Gamma slochen luv', neither can
the spates droon il; gin man wad gle a the
haudin's O. his hoouse for Iuv' they wad be
althegither scorned."
! There have been many authors as exacttng
! as Herbert Spencer, but few as frank. 1t is
| told OF The Spencer OF two or three years ago:
| "He has conceived an Intolerance OF remarks
| OF a commonplace and unfrutful character
| and has brought with him appar atus
| which he could at pleasure slip over his ears
and which spared i'm the pain OF auricular
, contact with less gifted mortals.'
| The tomb of Robert Louis Stevenson, on
Mount Vaen, has been completed finally, after
tremely simple-a plain block of concrete, sar-
cophagus shaped resting on platform OF the
same material The tablets are on each side
OF the block. One is inscri bed with the beauti-
lul Requiem" which Stevenson wrote many
years ago. and the other bears d verse from
Ruth" in Samoan.
A curious thing has happened in the matter
of criticism of Mr.. Stephen Cranes 1.-THE Third
Violet" American reviews and newspapers,
! a most without exception, have dismissed the
book as either bad or unimportaut. The Eng
lish reviewers almost universally welcomed il
as momentous and judged it good. Is this an
attempt on the part of the London critics to
bolster up their claim OF having discovered"
| "The Red Badge OF Courage ?''
Mr.. Hall Caiue contradicts the report that at
| the Manx general election he would endeavor
TO secure seat for Peel in the House of Keys.
| In letter just published he says: '1t NAV
save further trouble if L say at once that
! seat in the House OF Keys would be an honor
and pleasure entirely beyond my possibilities,
| because as man of letters l have large and
exacting constituency already which demands
all my time and much more than all my en-
ergy.''
Mr.. Kipling has written letter to David
Christie Murray on the subject of the criti-
in London paper. Mr.. Kipling hopes the
time will come when heswill be able to write
"a real novel-not q one-volume or a two
volume, but real, decent three-decser." He
considers that no man on this side OF 40 al the
earliest has secreted enough observation-not
to say thought-to write novel, which, in
spite of all they say of the short story is in his
| opinion the real vehicle. "Independent firing
| by marksmen is pretty thing, but it is the
| olI Erip of fuIl hatt IN hat n1a
front"
"When / was out West" said business
man quoted in Hardware, "a young man reg
istered at the hotel and proceeded to make
things lively. The first nj ght he played poker
with the landlord and cleaned him out: the
! next night he came home drunk and whipped
the cabman; the third night he went up and
down the halls singing at the top Of his voice
! and daring the chambermaids TO come out
and I'm brace him. In the morning they asked
| for the key OF his room and gave him his bill.
He looked it over, and then said with sur
prised pathos, Don't you make any discount
| 10 ministers?
! When Justin Mccarthy began "a History of
Our Own Times" be was so we'll known as q
| journalist and novelist of ability that Ole of
the London publishers is said to have made q
| contract with him for the work. Before finish
| ing 1t, however, Mr. Mccarthy had become
very conspicuously identified with the home
rule cause then very unpopular in England,
and on his Offering the manuscript for publi-
cation it was rejected on the ground that a
| history OF England written by an Irish Nation
alist would not sell. Mr.. Mccarthy at once
| look the work to the house of Chatto & Win
dus and received for it twice the sum he had
previously agreed to acceptl 1t is reputed to
be the most popular history published since
Macaulay's England" appeared.
A sx-year-old girl in Chicago has written a
book OF poems, and an enterprising Western
publisher will bring it out with an eye to
supplying the demand that always arises for
anything of a "record" nature, says the PhiIa-
delphia Press. In one place in the book the
youngest poet" breaks out with the following
verse:
The flower that bends down TO the earth
Will soon go back to God,
But never again will it return
The same as 1t was piod.
In an apparently much eeded footnote the
author explains that "this poem, which came
into the head quick and sudden, doesn't make
sense, because the word 'plod, which rhymes
so nicely with God, doesn's mean what want
it to-"