The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-03-20
LITERARY NOTES.


A second edition of Miss Anna Farquhar's
story, "A Singers Heart" has been is
sued.
Mr. Andrew Lang is engaged upon a his
tory of Scotland about which the public is
to hear no particulars until the autumn
The Lewis CARROLL memorial in London
is to take the form of an Alice in Wonder
land" cot at the Hospital for Sick Children,
Great Ormond street.
Mr. Alfred Austin. the poet laureate, has
severed his connection as a leader-writer on
the London Standard in order to devote
himself wholly to poetry.
The witty papers on 1.-The Unquiet Sex"
by Mrs. Helen Watterson Moody, which
have entertained the readers of Scribners
Magazine, are to be brought out IN DOCK
form.
The new volume of Anna Katharine
Green, author of 1.-THE Leavenworth Case"
THAT Affair Next Door, etc, will be en-
titled Lost Mans Lane" 1t presents a
second episode in the life of Amelie But
terWorth, whose experiences IN Fnat Al
fair Next Door have been found of inter-
est by many readers.
The first part of a work by Colonel r. w.
Phipps on the "Marshals of Napoleon T.
will probably appear this year. Although
the lives of a few of the famous marshals
have been treated separately by other
writer's, there is no book dealing generally
with the subject and describing the history
and characteristics of each of these leaders.
In fact, it is thought that many people
do not even know the names of the mar
shals, as such generals as Junot and Duroc
are frequently included in the list
The editor of the Atlantic Monthly lin
place of Mr.. Horace E. Scudder who has
long been incapacitated by illness and is
now travelling in Europe) is Walter H.
Page, Southerner by birth and training.
and related by the way, to Thomas Nelson
Page, the writer of short stories. Mr.. Page
was educated at Johns Hopkins University,
in Baltimore, and was at one time editor OF
the Forum. Another former editor of the
Forum, Mr.. A. e. Keet, has been appointed
manager of the Pail Mall Magazine in the
United States.
1t would be difficult to recall, says the
London Saturday Review, period of great
er stagnation in the publishing trade than
has marked the first two months of this
year. There have been pessmists who have
seen in the dreary record of 1897 signs of
the decay of English letters, but what will
they have to say to the output of the pres
ent season? stale, fat, and Improbable"
may be written large upon nine-tenths of it.
Justly alarmed at the feeble condition of
the book market, publishers appear to be
holding back their big announcements on
the chance of trade improving, and to be
justifying their existence by the production
OF commission works.
Those>who know Henryk Sienkiewicz say
that he would rather go shooting or tramp
ing over the mountains, any day, than
write. He writes his serials from week to
week, and sometimes in the middle of one,
when the most exciting situation is reached,
he takes his gun and disappears. His pub
fishers tear their hair. but his readers have
to restrain their curiosity until he returns;
when he takes up the thread of his narra-
tive and carries it on to the end, unless an
other fit of restlessness seizes him. Be-
fore "Quo Vadis' was written, Sienkiewicz
was supposed to have made 100000 by his
pen. AS that book mas sold into the hun
dreds of thousands after running as a
serial, he must be a good many thousands
of dollars richer to-day.
About month ago the public libraries
division Of the University of the State of
New York, following recent precedent is
sued list of 900 leading books their
titles selected from the 1923 published in
1897. The list was submitted to the librari-
ans of the State, to "obtain an expression
of opinion respecting the best fifty books
of 1897 for village library" Up to March
z 157 replies had been received, and as it
was expressly requested that all answers
ton of results was Immediately undertaken.
The record of the votes/is shown in the
New York Times, and it is interesting to
note that eX-PreSident Harrison's book,
This Country of Ours" is the ninth on
the list. 1t is the more remarkable that
book of this serious character should rank
near to first choice when the demand for
fiction in public libraries is considered. OF
the eight books preceding it in order five
book comes first under the head, Social
Science"