The House of Boffin announces a revised edition of Mr. Elbert Pitts's
_Final Words on Religion_, under the title of _Antepenultimate
Words on Religion_. As Mr. Pitts observes in his arresting Preface,
"Finality, in a time of upheaval, is a relative term, and I hope,
at intervals of six months or so, to publish my penultimate,
quasi-ultimate and paulo-post-ultimate views on the vital beliefs
which underlie the fantastic superstructure of dogmatic theology."
The new work will be illustrated with three portraits of the author
by Mr. Marcellus Thom, taken at various stages of the composition of
the work.
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Mr. Pitts has also completed a new novel entitled _The Bounder of
Genius_, and has kindly furnished us with a brief outline of its
contents. The hero, who starts life as an artificial raspberry-pip
maker and amasses a colossal fortune in the Argentine grain trade,
marries a poor seamstress in his struggling days, but deserts her
for a brilliant variety actress, who is in turn deposed by (1) the
daughter of a dean, (2) the daughter of an earl, and (3) the daughter
of a duke. Ultimately Jasper Dando, for that is his name, leads a
crusade to Patagonia, where he establishes a new republic founded on
Eugenics, China tea, and the Prohibition of the Classics. Mr. Pitts
thinks it the finest thing he has done, and he is fortified in this
conviction by the opinion of Mr. Stoot, the principal reader of the
House of Boffin.
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We are glad to hear that Mr. Hanley Potter will shortly issue, through
the firm of Bloomer and Guppy, a selection from the reviews, notices
and essays contributed by him to _The Slagville Gazette_. "They are
interesting," says the author, "as the expression of a fresh and
unbiassed mind, unfettered by any respect for established reputations
or orthodox standards." The titles of some of the articles--"The
Dulness of Dante," "The Sloppiness of Scott," "George Eliot as
Pedant," "Jane Austen the Prude"--indicate sufficiently the richness
of the treat provided in these stimulating pages.
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The Centenary of JANE AUSTEN is to be celebrated in a thoroughly
practical manner by the House of Hussell. It will be remembered
that, some thirty years ago, an effort was made to revive the waning
popularity of SIR WALTER SCOTT by the issue of a series of condensed
versions of his novels, in which redundant passages, notes and
introductions were removed and the salient features were compressed in
a compact and animated narrative. In order to render justice to JANE
AUSTEN the process needed is diametrically opposite. JANE AUSTEN'S
novels are short and singularly lacking in picturesqueness, emotion,
colour. Mr. Hamo Bletherley, who has been entrusted with the task
of infusing these elements into JANE AUSTEN'S staid and reticent
romances, points out that her vocabulary was extraordinarily limited.
Her abstinence from decorative epithets led to results that are bald
and unconvincing. One may look in vain in her pages for such words
as "arresting," "vital," "momentous" or "sinister." She never uses
"glimpse," "sense" or "voice" as verbs. We look forward with eager
anticipation to the results of Mr. Bletherley's courageous experiment.
* * * * *
In this connection we cannot too heartily congratulate Mr. Jerome
Longmore, the well-known bookman and literary curio-collector, on his
latest stroke of good luck. It appears that in a recent pilgrimage
to Selborne he met the only surviving great-granddaughter of Sarah
Timmins (charwoman at Chawton in the years 1810 to 1815), and
purchased from her a pair of bedroom slippers, a pink flannel
dressing-gown and a boa which had belonged to the great novelist. A
full description of these priceless relics will shortly appear in
_The Penman_, together with a life and portrait of Sarah Timmins, who
married a pork butcher in Liphook and died in 1848. One of her letters
establishes the interesting fact that JANE AUSTEN never ate sausages.
* * * * *
We may add that Mr. Longmore is not one of those miserly collectors
who brood over their treasures and deny the sight of them to others.
On the contrary he takes the keenest pleasure in showing them to
his friends, and at the present time is holding a series of informal
receptions at his charming villa at Potter's Bar, at which, robed
in JANE AUSTEN'S dressing-gown, wearing her boa and shod in her
slippers, he presents a truly romantic and distinguished spectacle.
We understand that the Potter's Bar authorities are favourably
considering the proposal that warnings of air raids in that locality
should be given by the appearance in public of Mr. Longmore in this
striking dress.
* * * * *
"... Mr. Lloyd George, on whom, by devious paths, has
descended the mantle of Lord Rosebery."--_Daily Express._
Including the PRIMROSE path, we presume.
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