... London, March 4th, 1903. I am often reminded how little the world is really inte rested in literature, or at least in the quiet pursuit of certain phases of literary work, that is not represented in the sale of hundreds of thousands of copies. This particularly occurred to me when I opened the various daily papers last week to see what attention they would give to the late Dr. Birkbeck Hill, ...

... London, March nth, 1903. A few weeks ago I published a photograph con cerning Napoleon at St. Helena. I received a letter from Miss Marryat, a granddaughter of the famous author of Peter Simple and Mr. Midshipman Easy, kindly placing at my disposal a most interesting album of sketches by her grandfather and of news paper cuttings. Miss Marryat gives me permission to reproduce here the rough ...

... London. March 18th. roor. The Johnson Club meeting held last week was an exceedingly interesting affair. Mr. W. J. Courthope was the principal guest and gave an address on Dr. Johnson as a Critic, with Special Reference to his Life' of Pope. Mr. Austin Dobson, who has only recently been enrolled in the very limited club membership, read some verses addressed to Mr. Courthope which I am ...

... London, March 25th, 1903. The firm of Jack of Edinburgh, whose name is be- coming associated with many handsome book publications, notably an edition of Sir Walter Scott and of Lockhart's Life, sends me two series of the Portfolio of Scottish Portraits, edited by James L. Caw. I had always understood that every good Scot objected to the word, Scottish, or Scotch, unless this last was ...

... London, April ist, 1903. I have for years identified the firm presided over by Sir George Newnes with an extraordinary skill for providing reading matter for the multitude. That skill has long found its culminating point in the Strand Magazine, pre-eminently the magazine of ideas. It com mitted, it is true, the grave oversight of never asking me to be interviewed and never requesting my ...

... London, April 8th, 1903. One may offer sincere congratulations to Miss Marie Corelli, Mr. Sidney Colvin, and others who are making a protest against an attempt to replace some old houses of Stratford-on-Avon by a new spick-and span free library that Mr. Carnegie has offered to build. This free library will be a few yards from the Shakspere House as indicated in the illustration I give herewith ...

... London, April 15th, 1903. The most interesting personality in American litera ture and probably the greatest genius belongs to one who was the least prosperous-- Edgar Allan Poe. America has usually done well by its literary sons. Motley, Bancroft, Lowell, and Hawthorne it made representatives at foreign Courts or consuls at foreign ports. To Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, and Whittier it ...

... London, April 22nd, 1903. A correspondent in Marlow sends me a very interest ing if somewhat gruesome photograph. This is of the so-called incorruptible hand of St. James. At the present moment the Roman Catholic Church is engaged in examining the authenticity of this hand, for if sufficient evidence be forthcoming it is proposed to remove it from St. Peter's, Great Marlow, where it now is, ...

... London, May 6th, 1903. I have been reading several romances of late and I am sorry that the scope of this letter scarcely gives me an opportunity of doing much more than name them. They are as follows:-- Typhoon, and Other Stories. By Joseph Conrad. (Hiinc- m aim.) The Star Dreamer. By Agnes and Egerton Castle. (Constable.) The Gold Wolf. By Max Pemberton. (Ward and Lock.) As a Tree Falls. By ...

... London, May 13th, 1903. The appearance of Lord Goschen's book, Georg Joachim Goschen, Publisher and Printer, pub lished a few weeks ago by Mr. John Murray, has naturally tempted me to a reconsideration of many of the books in my library that are concerned with German literature. I once in early years spent three whole months in a German village on the shores of the Baltic in the house of a ...

... London. May 20th, 1003. I have before me two privately-printed volumes that make very acceptable reading. They are as follows:-- Letters to M. G. and H. G. By John Ruskin. With Preface by the Right Hon. G. Wyndham. Privately printed. Memoirs of Anna Maria Wilhelmina Pickering. Edited by her son, Spencer Pickering. Together with Extracts from the Journals of her father, John Spencer Stanhope, ...

... London, May 27th, 1903. I have received from Mr. Moring of the De La More Press a book which bears the following title:-- The Altar Service Book according to the Use of the Church of England, together with the Kalendar, Notes, and Devotions. Edited by Vernon Staley, Provost of the Cathedral Church of St. Andrew, Inverness. The book is superbly printed and superbly bound, and it is illustrated ...