(_Famous Publisher's Great Scheme of Reconciliation._)
Hearing on good authority that Mr. Blinkingham, the well-known
publisher, was about to launch an enterprise of a magnitude only
comparable with that of the _Ency. Brit._ or the _D.N.B._, Mr.
Punch hastened to headquarters for confirmation of the report, was
graciously admitted to his presence and furnished with the following
interesting details. Mr. Blinkingham, it may be mentioned, is at
all points a finely equipped representative of his class, handsome,
well-groomed and wearing his monocle with distinction. His sanctum is
furnished with delightfully catholic taste--Louis Quinze furniture, a
Japanese embossed wall-paper, pictures by BOTTICELLI and Mr. WYNDHAM
LEWIS and statuettes of PLATO, VOLTAIRE and Mr. WELLS (the Historian,
not the Bombardier).
After some preliminary observations on the deplorable condition of the
pulp industry, Mr. Blinkingham unfolded his colossal scheme. "By way
of preface," remarked the great literary _impresario_, "let me call
your attention to the momentous statement made by the Editor of _The
Athenaeum_ in the issue of May 7th: 'We doubt whether there has ever
been a generation of men of letters so startlingly uneducated as this,
so little interested in the study of the great writers before
them.' The Editor of _The Athenaeum_ takes a most gloomy view of
the situation, which is fraught with an atmosphere of hostility and
suspicion inimical to a revival of criticism. Yet he sees in such
a revival the only way of salvation, the only means of healing the
internecine feud which is now convulsing the young literary world.
"For my own part I am convinced that a better way is to lure back the
modernists to a study of great writers by presenting them in a more
palatable form, not by compressing or abridging them--for that has
been tried before--but by having them re-written in conformity with
present-day standards by eminent contemporary writers. This notion had
been germinating in my head for some time past, but I did not see my
way clear until I read the luminous and epoch-making remark of Mr.
C. K. SHORTER, that he would sooner have written _Tom Jones_ than any
book published these two hundred years. In a moment, in a flash, my
scheme took shape. 'He shall write it, or rather re-write it,' I said
to myself, and I have already submitted to this eminent man of letters
my rough _scenario_ of the lines on which FIELDING'S novel should
be brought home to the Georgian mind. In reply he has made a
counter-suggestion that the characters should be rearranged on a
Victorian basis, CHARLOTTE BRONTE replacing _Sophia_, THACKERAY _Mr.
Allworthy_, while the title-role should be assigned to an enterprising
publisher. But I am not without hope that he will adopt my plan.
"The revival of interest in the works of RICHARDSON, the other great
eighteenth-century novelist, is, I think I may safely say, a foregone
conclusion. Miss DOROTHY RICHARDSON has enthusiastically welcomed
the proposition that she should reconstruct the romances of her
illustrious namesake, and confidently expects, on the basis of the
method employed by her in _The Tunnel_, that she will be able to
excavate at least a hundred volumes from the materials supplied in
_Sir Charles Grandison_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_.
"Nor shall we overlook the earlier masters. Professor CHAMBERLIN,
whose thrilling lectures on QUEEN ELIZABETH and Lord LEICESTER
have been the talk of the town for the last fortnight, has kindly
undertaken to organise a new _variorum_ version of the Plays of
SHAKSPEARE, with the assistance of Mr. LOONEY, the writer of the
recently-published and final work on the authorship of the plays.
MILTON will be presented in both verse and prose, Mr. MASEFIELD having
promised to re-write his epic in six-lined rhymed stanzas, shorn of
Latinisms; while a famous novelist, who does not wish her name to
appear at present, has consented to recast it in the form of a romance
under the title of _The Miseries of Mephistopheles_.
"Returning to the eighteenth century, I am glad to be able to say
that a brilliant reconstruction of POPE'S _Dunciad_ is promised by
the SITWELL family, in which the milk-and-water school is held up to
ridicule, with TENNYSON in the place of dishonour formerly occupied by
THEOBALD. With a magnanimity that cannot be too highly commended, the
staff of _The Times_ has undertaken to adapt another forgotten work
under the title of _Grey's Eulogy_, with special reference to the work
of the League of Nations.
"I confess to feeling rather doubtful as to the possibility of
reviving any interest in the works of SCOTT, DICKENS and THACKERAY.
They are at once too near and too far. Still I hope to persuade Miss
REBECCA WEST to try her hand at _Vanity Fair_. Then there is GEORGE
ELIOT, another uncertain quantity, though perhaps something might
be made of _The Mill on the Floss_ if it were renamed _Tulliver's
Travels_, and given an up-to-date industrial atmosphere by Mr. ARNOLD
BENNETT. I have my eye on Mr. LYTTON STRACHEY as the man who could
make a fine modern version of _Tom Brown's Schooldays_. At the moment
he is too busy with his _Life of Queen VICTORIA_, but I feel sure he
will not lightly abandon so splendid an opportunity of unmasking the
pedantry and pietism of Dr. ARNOLD and throwing the white light of
truth on 'Rugby Chapel.'"
* * * * *