The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1922-05-14

Bohemian, he was in the habit of
doing all his writing at the cafe.
The hotel proprietor offered to Dor
row one from M. Proudhon. Fine"
said Murger. at will be the more
amusing" Thus it was the Social
lists own pen that wrote the ter
rible retort that appeared in the
Dir Decembre.-From "Les An
males" of Paris.
The Almost Forgotten Ouida.
WHO of us has not to a certain
w extent admired the bizarre
genius of Ouida? Expect passion,
contradiction, many fine furies,
much injustice, some ignorance and
more prejudice; but expect, for you
will find along with this love Of
humanity, love of animals, love of
beauty in nature and in art. Ouida
was in her way a woman of letters,
and had part of the temperament of
the artist, with an impotence too
indiscriminate to be really artistic.
| an uncultured, human Impotence
which is often mere pettishness.
She loved beauty, but she loved ii
as savage might love it; she loved
humanity, but she could not stop
to understand it. She had her own
way of looking at the world, a
warm, generous way of feeling what
is noble and picturesque in it; but
she had never misunderstood that
wise little cold word of the observer
that there is only one step from the
sublime to the ridiculous. Her
novels, which were once thought
not quite proper, are really absurdly
moral; virtue is always So very
white in them and vice is very
black. She has never drawn a
quite recognizable human being be-
cause she has never been able to
take an impartial view of any ac-
tion. any emotion or any tempera-
ment.-From Feminine Fiction"
By Arthur SyBlons in the Saturday
ReUieto.
Selling American Books in Britain.
| M ST American novels published
AfA in Britain are put on the
market first in the library edition,
meaning thereby the book, usually
a novel, at rs. Cd. to SIS. 3D., the
present equivalent of the pre-war
6s. book. The great majority of
such novels are produced entirely
in this country. the characteristic
American spellings being replaced
by English. With respect to circu-
lation, probably not more than a
dozen American novelists can be
depended on for a sale of 5000
copies or upward in this edition,
the sales of the rest falling into
the 500 to 1000 copies category
But the tale in not a few instances
is very different as regards the
cheap editions, which range in
price from Is. to IS. 3D. like SINH
larry priced British books. These
editions are produced entirely in
Britain, and constitute a very i'm
portant part of British publishing.
Taken under titles, books of Ameri-
can origin of this sort now on sale
number several hundred. One lead
| ing British house has on its list
about $50 cheap editions of British
and American novels and short
story books, and of these nearly
$50, or about one-third, are Ameri-
can. In the cheap editions sales of
Americans are often very large, in
some cases astonishing. The Lin
berlost" series, by Mrs. Stratton
Porter, runs into 100000, and the
"Tarzan" series cannot be far be-
hind; the Zane Grey novels sell up
to 500, 900 each. /Other examples Of
prodigious sales might be given
From the Saturday ReUietC.
DIR. johnson and the Thrales.
JOHNSON knew nothing of the