The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-14

From the New York Evening Post.
 TIVEN allowing for the amazing liter
 H ary facility which the Benson fam A fly claims for Its own. it IS inn possible to open MT. Edward Frederic Renson's latest novel without being im- pressed by the list of three dozen or so earlier books that have flowed from the same pen. MT Benson is a young man of 43 and he began writing about IT years ago. Since then his average has neen nearly two and a quarter novels year.
 His case is probably the leading one among English writers, but is by no means highly exceptional. All the young CT men whose names are to the front are extremely busy writers. H. G. Wells, who began publishing in 1895, Is cred ited In the last edition of Who's Who, with 31 titles; by this moment, the total
 is probably 32 or 33, which gives us an annual average almost as high as MT.
 Bensons. Since 1904, G. K. Chesterton has turned cut a round dozen volumes, which makes an output of two volumes year. MT Gasworthy has come into
 prominence only during the last few years, but his record for that time in drama, fiction and general criticism is impressive. MT. Charles Marriott, mo- velists of notable achievement and great CT promise, has written 15 novels since 1901 The list could easily be extended. A comparison with American literary productivity suggests itself It is a com
 parison that counts against us. Some Englishmen are fond of saying that the effectiveness of American hustle is out of proportion to the accompanying noise. At bottom, they say, the average European business man works harder and accomplishes more without landing himself in a sanitarium. In any case, our novelists sare certainly less indus trious than the Engishmen. We may put our two elder writers aside. MI. Henry James, in our own Who's Who, is credited with nearly 45 book titles for a career of 40 years and more, though 1t Is to be noted that his record might have been a much longer one if he had chosen to maintain the pace of his earliest years; he published three vol
 umes in 1878, four volumes in 1879, and three volumes in 1884.
 MT. Howell is credited in Who's Who with about 70 titles, but that covers literary career of half a century. We | turn to the younger men. MT. Robert w. Chambers, the first man we probably | think of among our ready writers, has written 26 volumes in the same time that Mr. Benson has produced nearly 40. Jack | London, in whom, if in anyone, we ex- pect titanic energy, ceaselessly manifest ing itself has 20 volumes since 1900, a good showing, but not up to the English record. MT. David Graham Phillips has
 done r volumes since 1901. MT. Robert
 Herrick has done IS volumes in 15 years,
 but in Mr. Herrick's case it is only fair
 to recall that he works at his trade, in
 addition to writing books. MT. Winston
 Churchill makes it rule to give two
 years to book. Since 1898 he has pro-
 duced seven volumes
 | Here Is one field. therefore. in which
 the speed of life in the New World has not increased over that in the old. And
 it might also be shown that in this field
 the pace of modern life has not increased
 over that of 50, 100 or 200 years ago. 1 What we have said of contemporary English writers will more than hold good
 for France, whose men of letters in their
 prodgious industriousness entirely belle | the Capuan reputation of present-day Paris. Not only in fiction, but in the fields of criticism and scholarship, the
 Frenchmen of today are true to the tra- dition of Voltaire and his hundreds of
 volumes, of Diderot, and of Sainte-
 Beuve The classic English novelsts are
 less copious, but a Dickens novel every two years meant three or four novels of
 present-day length. Thackeray, Reade,
 Trolope filled an amount of sbelf space
 which it would take many scores of our
 modern thin-chested novels to cover. That their successors are courageously
 trying to, is indicated bx the figures we have cited.
 The reasons for our lower literary productivity are two. One reason Is the
 much closer connection between litera-
 ture and journalism in Europe. and the other reason is the much smaller finan-