Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1904-07-06

Marmaduke Plckthalfs story Of the
Orient, "Said, the Fisherman" is in
quired for under many names. The
publishers received an order recently
for~"Shad, the Fisherman"
One volume at least of the CORE
spondence Of Queen Victoria is likely
to be ready by autumn. There is so
much valuable material in the letters
that the work is pretty sure to run
to three volumes.
The London agent of Doubleday.
Page & Co. has made arrangements
with Mr.. Kipling for the publication
in America in the fall OF a new volume
of short stories. The title has not
yet been selected, but there will be
twelve stories in the book.
Gelett Burgess, co-author with Will
Irwin Of 'The Picaroons" and .The
Reign Of Queen Isyl' Mcclure Phil
lips) has so identified himself with
the amusing side of literature that no
one would suspect he had made his
literary debut as writer of melan-
choly verse. But he did. When he
was a student at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology he engaged in
a competition with friend as to who
could write the most mournful poem.
Mr.. Burgess won the prize with some
stanzas, which began: 'The dismal
day, the dreary pace, hath dragged it's
tortuous length along" 1t was decid-
ed that this must be printed. To effect
this Mr.. Burgess friends wrote a let
ter to the ''Notes and Queries col
umn Of the Boston Transcript, saying:
Can you tell me the name of the au-
thor who wrote the poem beginning
The dismal etc.," The query was
! printed, and the obliging friend re-
sponded promptly with the following
answer: ''The poem asked for in
Query No. 2,416 is by Frank Gelett
Burgess. The whole poem runs as
follows" and gave it in full
This is considered by J. Cuthbert
Hadden, an appropriate time to write
Of the plague of novels which he dis
cusses in the Fortnightly Review. He
points out that 1850 novels were pub
lished in this country last year and
adds: 'The trouble is that the great
bulk Of our current fiction is distress
ingly bad. Not more than five out
Of every 100 novels are artisticallly
satisfying. Not one in every thousand
has chance Of Immortality" Mr.
Hadden begins by casting the blame
on authors and publishers; on the
former for Over-weaning variety, on
the latter for readiness to publish bad
novels at the expense of the authors.
Concerning three-fourths of unknown
novelists," he says, they send their
manuscript to the publisher, who says,
Yes, your story is very good; I'll be
glad to produce it if you'll pay so
much toward the cost" AS rule the
so much is the total cost and a little
over The publisher loses nothing; the
author loses the amount of his check.
But in reality there is a large number
Of London publishers who seldom or
never publish books at the authors ex-
pense, but doubtless produce many in
ferior novels because they know there
is a market for them.
Keeping a book list is both a profit
able and an interesting practice In
fact, most great readers keep two lists,
one of the books read during a year,
or any certain period Of time, and one
of the books to be read as soon as con-
venient. A pleasant eXpedient is to
mark in some way the books in this
second list which one hopes to pur-
chase sooner Or later. The chief value
eff the first list, apart from a certain
pleasure in looking back and thinking
over what one has accomplished, is
that it helps remind one of the books
worth re-reading, and helps keep one
from those which are trashy and un-
profitable. AS the list Of books read
steadily grows larger one must feel
a pride in the number of solid books
noted down. The book list is a grand
thing fer boys and girls, who in these
days of abundant reading matter. are
too likely to read without noting even
the authors name, and sometimes not
remembering the subject for any
length Of time. The book list for chill
dren is the first step toward careful
selection. A list of books needed or
desired is the best weapon of defence
against the book agent, for with that
in mind and the long-coveted volumes,
one cannot easily be induced to SUBJ
scribe for any chance publication.