The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-11-02
LITERARY GOSSIP.

The A.. Vessels company has secured
] the American edition of "Stevensoniana."
| by j. A. Hammerton which will be pub
lished by them Immediately
| The edition is limited to 900 copies for
| England and America and is issued uni
| form with Colvin's Letters of Robert
Louis Stevenson" and in outward APP
| pearance will be uniform with the Edin-
! burgh Stevenson" The single aim ever
| before the compiler was to search for his
| material only in the forgotten pages of
| English and American periodicals, and in
| books by writer's of eminence not entirely
! devoted to Stevenson.
"Barbizon Days" by Charles sprague
| Smith, will be issued Immediately in a
special edition for the holidays-the .'Fon-
| tainebleau Edition. Probably no recent
| volume on art has received such universal
| ly favorable criticism as this volume.
| Says Edwin Markham in a letter to the
| publishers: st is brilliant book full of
! freshness and golden gossip. This book
makes live for us and breathe that i'm
/ mortal group about the inn of Barbizon,
! whose only rivals are the ninble wits of
| the Mermaid tavern and the nest of sing
| ing birds at Concord" Since it's issue in
| been called for which proves that if the
| subject has sufficient of the human in
| trest readers can easily be lured from fic-
! ton.
The Century will publish during the
| coming year what seems likely. to be. pro-
nounced a daring and UNIQUE piece OF his
ply" by S. Weir Mitchell, LII. b., au-
! thor of Hugh Wynne." DR.. Mitchell
ina gines Washington sitting down at
Mount Vernon in his old age and record.
| ing, solely for his own eye, the story. of
his youthful life and the influences that
| affected it for good or i'll. 1t is prom,
into the habit of mind of Washington
that it will be impossible for the reader
| to separate in the text the passages taken
| out of his actual writings from those
| which DR.. Mitchell imagines him to write.
Booth Tarkington's Cherry" which ap-
peared as serial in Harpers Magazine,
was rewritten and enlarged for book form,
and is now one of the leading novels on
the Harper's autumn list Of fiction. 1t IS
said to be the cleverest comedy Mr.. Tark-
ington has yet done, the plot revolving
around the love affairs of a charming girl
| whose red ribbons give the title to the
story.
Mrs. Mary 3. Wilkins-Freeman, whose
| are known far and wide among the best in
| the language, has had some curious psyche
| logical experiences in writing them. For
| instance, she once wrote story OF man
| who sat on the church steps because ne
| had grievance, and was too angry to
enter. After it was published the author
was informed, to her surprise, that such
| an incident had actually occurred. Then
! again, when Mrs. Wilkins Freeman wrote
| Silence which is story of the Deerfleld
massacre, she learned after It's appear
| ance that woman named Silence had
| actually lived in Deerfield at the time,
! and one of her descendants asked Miss
| Wilkins if the story had been written or
| her; but the author had known nothing
| about her. Another still more uncanny
| example was the following: In THE Little
Maid in the Door," short story Of the
| Salem witchcraft period, Mrs. Wilkins
| Freeman had placed turn In the road at
a certain house described in the story,
| and afterwards discovered that there was
turn in the old road at that identical
| point.
HamIin Garland, author of ''Hesper,"
! is visiting with his family at the home
of Mrs. James A. Herne widow of the
actor-author at Southampton, Long
Island, where she has beautiful estate
| known as Herne-O Oaks. Mr.. Garland will
spend the winter in New York, and will
probably make his headquarters there In
/ future, retaining the old homestead at
! West Salem, Wis, where his early life
was passed He will lecture as usual in
the intervals of literary labor. Mr.. Car
! land believes that in 'Hesper'' he has
done his strongest work. In the midst
of rude mining camp he has set down dow.
| fetal and superficial in her luxury trained
| point of view, but with the possibilities
! of true Womanliness for all that, as the
| SeQuel proves.
Julian Hawthorne. whose charming vol
ume of "reminiscences of his father, "Haw-
thorne and His Circle" the Harpers are
publishing, came into the literary field
as Hopkinson Smith did, from that of
| engineering. Mr. Hawthorne began life
as photographic engineer of the New York
dock department After eighteen months
work he was rotated out of office. My
profession is not literature, but engineer
| ing he said recently. while I was
waiting for another job after leaving the
dock department, happened to write a
short story, for fun, and sent it to Har-
pers' Weekly. 1t was accepted, and 1 got
| fifty dollars for it. That seemed an easy
way of making money during the sus-
! pension of my professional activities, and
I kept at it, always expecting the new
engineering work. That was over thirty
years ago, and during the interval I
have done a good deal of writing, but
| have never for a moment ceased to hope
| for an order for a bridge or a canal. 1t
may come any day; am young yet-only
| fifty-seven-but I feel that it is not too
! late to begin serious work again.
| THE NOVEMBER MAGAZINES.