The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-15
LITERARY NOTES.

Lovers of Dickens will be pleased to learn
there is some talk of a biographical edition
of the great English novelist along the lines
of Mrs Ritchie'S biographical edition OF
Thackeray.
An English woman and an American have
this season happened to use the same title
for their novels. Miss Constant Smith,
like Miss Mary Johnston, has nit upon
Prisoners of Hope"
Israel Zangwill says he once overheard
some Jews discussing him. Hes not clev-
err" said one. HE is one of us and knows
all. about us. OF course, he can write of us.
But there's Besant. He's written q book
about us and doesn't know us at all. That's
what l call clever.
Mr.. Kipling is popularity supposed to be
the best-paid author now writing. For his
navy articles in the Morning Post he was
paid at the rate of 800 a thousand words.
The collected edition of these articles, a
Fleet in Being he has provided with set
of interesting notes.
The six days sales of early manuscripts
and early printed books. the property of the
late William Morris, realized &1O962. The
"Sherbrook Missal," an illustrated manu-
script of the early fourteenth century, pro-
duced $3.50; a twelfth century manuscript
of the New Testament Q1atin Vulgate), G225,
and q fourteenth century manuscript OF Viz
giFs Georgia. ct Oenesi." G164. The speci-
mems of early Typography also commanded
good prices
The Disappointed Authors Club has just
been formed in Philadelphia. 1t is COM
posed of only such persons as can produce
large numbers Of unsold manuscripts. I'm
der no circumstances would a successful
author be permitted to join. AS soon as a
member begins to sell his stories he will
be regarded with disfavor by the club. All
rejected manuscripts are to be read by the
writer's before the club, and at the conclu-
sion of the reading the literary judgment
and the character of the editor who re-
turned them are to be aSSafled.
Thomas E. Watson the well-known pop
ulist leader in Georgia. has, temporarily at
least, abandoned the dry husks of politics
for the wider and more attractive field of
history. He has been for some time en-
gagged upon a history of France, the first
volume of which will embrace the history
of the French people from the earliest Pc
riod to the death of Louis XIV. The second
volume will carry the story down to and
Napoleon. 1t is to be called THE Story of
France" and will be history of the
French people
One most prolific writer, now that "Old
sleuth'' is dead, is probably Kirk Munroe,
who in twelve years has thirty volumes to
his credit-very readable, too, they are for
young people. He is in the United States
what G. A. Henty is in Great Britain, and
they both seem to run neck and neck as to
which shall furnish the most amusement,
ana SOmeLlIneS instruction, IOr Dogs. Mr..
Munroe has a home al the extreme southern
point of Florida, where, with his fiction, he
cultivates oranges and mangoes. 1t is diff
fcult to say which of his arts is the most
prolific.
The latest medical criticism of novelists
is that they do not observe the proper pro-
portion between births and deaths. A medi-
cal man has examined a certain number of
works of fiction and discovered that the
deaths are to the births as sc is to 1. At this
rate the world of fiction should soon be de-
populated But this critic cannot have
taken into his survey the recent class of
novels which. as was said apropos. we be-
lieve, of Esther Walters" talk obstetrics
when the little stranger comes" These
thrilling romances must soon set the bal
ance of vital statistics in novels right
again,