Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1898 — BITS FOR BOOKWORMS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BITS FOR BOOKWORMS

Crispi's reminiscences, now complete, till eleven large volumes in manuscript. It is said that they will be published first in England. Maxwell Gray’s latest novel is entitled “The House of the Hidden Treasure.” It is now twelve years since “The Silence of Dean Maitland” took the novel-reading public by storm, but since 1894 Maxwell Gray has principally confined himself to short articles and essays. A George Meredith birthday book is to come forth in a “special fine edition’’ of seventy-five copies. This is being select with a vengeance, but fortunately for Meredith’s admirers there is to be an edition not so fine, which may be had by more than seventy-five purchasers. New books soon to be expected art Mrs. Gertrude Atherton’s novel, “The Californians,” which will be published by Mr. John Lane; a volume of short stories by. Paul Leicester Ford, entitled “Tattle Tales of Cupid;” Octave Thanet’s new book, “A Slave to Duty” (also short stories); novel, to be called “The College Widow,” and a posthumous volume of tales by the late Edward Bellamy-. Miss Margaret Benson, daughter of the Ittte Archbishop of Canterbury, is an Egyptologist of much energy and some note. With another lady she has been engaged in excavations at Karnak and has written a book describing their discoveries and giving an account of the daily life pf excavators in Egypt. Henry Seton Merriman’s latest story, “Roden's Corner,” has just been published in Loudon by Smith, Eder & Cd. Merriman is one of the most entertaining of contemporary English writers, and it seems that there is a brisk demand for his books in continental Europe. “With Edged Tools” has been done into French and German. “The Sowers”. into German, Danish and French, and “In Kedar’s Tents” into French and German. Mr. Zangwill. the clever and popular author of “Children of the Ghetto,” and other novels dealing with Jewish life, tells how, when an obscure lad, engag ed in teaching in an east end school, he sent a short poem to one of the bestknown American magazines. The poem was speedily returned to him, and Mr. Zangwill put it away safely till some little time back, when he again sent it to the same magazine. This time its reception was a contrast to the last. The proprietors of the magazine cabled to Mr. Zangwill offering to buy the “world rights” of the poem and very shortly they issued a l uge poster, proclaiming the fact that their next issue would contain a poem by I. Zangwill. The poem was the same as before, but the tide had turned, ine ship of the erstwhile Jewish lad had come in, and his very signature was worth money.