Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-11-14
Lady Randy s. Tact
Pleases Her English Readers.
HON. w. N. WILLIAMS.
particulars and fairly gloatcd over this
slaughter of--can we say--innocents

particulars and fairly gloatcd over this
slaughter of--can we say-innocents.
LIFE OF AVERAGE NOVEL
The average novel has life of
about three weeks said Mr., Runci-
man. while only two novels arc writ
ten by women and the books are some
times such dead losses from a selling
point of view that many London book
sellers will not stock them at all
Then we get the author or author
ess VINO has written one successful
book and then writes .pot-boiers, that
is turns out fiction which is mere rub
bish and which the public has no de-
sire to read So great Is the amount of
fiction now turned out that even the
best authors find Diminishing circula-
lion for their books"
Fortunately, the minister of educa-
ton would wind up his TRADE by
holding out a certain amount of hope
to the real author Iie said:
ut is my opinion. however, that the
supply of really good readable novels
is getting shorter and shorter every
year" This then leaves a loop-hole
| for the good author to come along and
| make his fortune. According to the
| economic laws, the; SMALLER the supply
the higher the price for the author
| So perhaps in the future we shall see
| fewer authors and more nillionaires
among the literary word-builders.
.INFAN,r MORTALITY"
| In discussing this position with
| well known London bookseller he said
| that the .'nfant-mortality' among
| novels by amateur writers was due
to the fact of the san1eness Of plot and
T! their sterentypcd conversations and
| love-scenes. Now that we know why
| books live such a short time-havlng
| Mr.. Runciman's word for it-there will
| be no difficulty for authors TO avoid
| the pot-boicrs and turn out long-lived
! books with striking plots and seeth-
| ing love scenes.
MI. Runciman. by the way, has re-
| Gently distinguished himself for an
| attack of what might be called news
| ophobia,' as he says that all the Eng
| lsh newspapers are full of unleadabie
| literary pifile, which is disgrace to
| the century. A writer i'll tho Star
| points out, however. that large
| amount of space In the newspapers is
| devoted to the speeches of cabinet
| ministers and that HIr. Runciman al
| ways has d column or two of matter
| in the press. Men like G. e. Shaw, A.
| Is. Walllley and Clement Shorter were
| all on the staff of the London newspa-
| pcrs at one time and so also were j. NJ.
| Barrie, Hall Caine and Jerome Is.
| Jerome. ! t is doubtful, under the cir
cumstunccS, whether Mr. Runciman's
| charge on the literary windmill would
| be more effective than his early proto-
| type's-the Immortal Don QuXote
| HOUSE Or COMMONS LIBRARY.
| Five hundred new volumes have just
| been added 10 the library Of the house
| of commons. II is rather interesting
| speculation as to the kind of books
| which the NJ. P.'s read and i asked the
| librarian the other day about this
| during a brief visit to the house.
Some OF the members" lie said,
"are great readers and the new volumes
which have just been added to our IL
brary are made up mostly Of history.
| biography and modern memoirs togeth-
| CT with II few volumes of poetry. It is
| not generally known that the house of
commons library Is the most complete
| political library in the world with the
| exception of the British museum.
| There are 10000 volumes. Perhaps this
| library is one Of the most singular in
| the world from the fact that 1t does
| not contain IL novel. Hosts OF pub
| fishers send .heir novels to the library
| but they are never accepted. The
| library at the house OF commons" con-
tinued the librarian, SIS principally