The San Francisco call., 1901-12-28
GOSSIP FROM
LONDON WORLD
OF LETTERS

( 1t is perhaps a little too early to at
tempt any adequate review of the sale of
books for the season. but there is an i'm
| preston that this year win, after all.
] compare very favorabIy with last. and will
indeed prove the best that bath publishers
and booksellers have enjoyed for a long
time.
Fiction. of course. is responsible for the
bulk Of the trade. but it is worth noting
that there have been really remarkably
\ large sales of biographical and historical
works.
Publishers have not yet, of course, is
sued their spring lists, but from inquiry
it would appear that numerous arrange
/ ments have been made.
There promises to be a very heavy out
/ put of fiction during the early months OF
/ the new year.
/ Rudyard KipIing will publish a new
book. which, it is said, he has decided
not to serialize. If this means that sue
| cessfuI authors are beginning to feel that
/ the seriaIizing of books tends 10 lnJure
/ their after sales it may be the beginning
of a rather important development
/ Heinemann has secured new book by
I E f Benson. called Scarlet and Hys-
/ son - two things which are associated in
\ the Bible with sin. The title, therefore,
suggests that BensOn's book deals with
various forms of social wrongdoing.
The same firm will also issue new
novel called "The Mystery of the Sea-
bv Bran StOker, Sir Henry lrving's pop
Mar manager StOker, as usual, has a
supernatural plot The scene Is laid in
/ Scotland, and the heroine is an Amert-
I can.
Methuen will issue in the spring novels
/ nv Mrs l. T Zade Mrs. EVerard COtes,
/ Miss AdeIine Sergeant, Cutliffe Hyne,
Benjamin Swift, Weatherby Chesney,
Robert Barr, Bernard Capes, Max Penn
| berton and Arthur Morrison
Messrs HutchisOn have arranged for
/ the publication, among others, of new
| books by Frankfort Moore, Rita and
/ Miss Allen Raine, the Welsh writer,
| whose book "The Welsh Singer" is now
| in its eleventh edition
| When Fisher Unwin's list comes out 1t
will be found to contain story of Prince
Rupert, by Charles Steuart, called "A
/ Lions WheIp'; a story by Mrs. AlexaI-
| der called ''The Yellow Fiend, and
| Mistress Barbara CUnliffe,' by Hallt-
we'll Sutcliffe. In this last the writer Will
/ be found to have abandoned for once his
| usual battlehelds and 10 tell Yorkshirsl
| love tale of 1890.
| II. b. Wells is for the moment abandon
! ing his scientific mood, and the novel on
| which he is engaged is a humorous study
/ of character.
| 1t is not often that a woman well known
in the higher social world has created
any stir with a novel, with, perhaps, the
/ exception of Lady Helen Craven and
Lady Ridley. but the Hon. Mrs. Walter
| Forbes has earned a great deal of credit
/ with the novel she has written, called
/ Dumb Society people are talking
about it on all sides.
| Further details are forthcoming about
/ the Book of Beauty which was spoken
| of a little while ago. Among the portraits
| which will adOrn its pages may be men
/ toned a new one of Lady Warwick, the
| Duchess of Sutherland, Mrs. Rupert
Beckett, which is from drawing by Lady
\ CRANKY; Mrs. Fritz POnsOnby and Lady
\ Chesterfield, a copy of Constants fine
| portrait; the Princess DemidOn, Miss
/ MurieI Wilson, the Countess TOrby, Lady
| CarnarvOn and the Duchess Of MarlbOr-
| ough. Altogether there will be about
| forty full page portraits as well as min
| iature sketches.
| Privately printed histories of families
| tend to become excessively rare and eX-
| pensive, but few of them are likely to
| touch the price that will be asked some
| day for the Chronicles of the AthOll and
/ TulIibardine Families, Collected and Ar
ranged by John the Seventh Duke of
/ AthoH, K T, in -Four Volumes, Edin-
burgh, Privately Printed at the Ballan-
| tyne Press, 1885,
/ There is no copy of the wOrk-which
\ runs tc two thousand pages-in the Brit
| ish Museum, though his Grace, who used
to be a constant visitor in the reading
| room, got a good deal of Information
| there; nor is it believed there is a copy
/ in any public library. The book must
have taken mint of money to produce.
| The Duke distributed it among his ten
ants.
Choice candies, Townsend's, Palace Hotel.'
|
~