1933-01-30 — Page 4

MONDAY, JANUARY 30, 1933.

FINE PRINTING IN

1932.

Expensive Publications

Restricted.

The work of the Private Prosses und the output of expensively pro- duced books has naturally been re- stricted in the last year. Never- theless, the number of such books, all things considered, is rather on- couraging. There have been one or two books of quite outstanding dig tinction, and many othors of con siderable interest.

A Modern Before His Time

Sidelights On Life Of Samuel Butler

TYPICAL TRAITS OF TO-DAY

(By J. E. PRIESTLEY,

THE CHINA MAIL..

e.g., Trollope, have ascending repu-] tations, and, on the other hand, it is possible that Butler's fame and influence have passed their peak--- but it does not wander far from the {truth.

RELICS OF JOHN KEATS

Gift To Hampstead

I

..

Collection.

the kind of man now approaching added to the Keats House collec middle-iffe. Not the younger gen- tion. The first, a letter from Joseph eration, those and young men who Severn, and written at the age of worship Mr. T. S. Eliot and become

Anglo-Catholics, for they represent 84 from Rome to his daughter

Eleanor (Mrs. Heury Furneaux), is) as follows:-

'WORTHLESS" BOOK BRINGS £445.

Thrown Aside For Destruction.

It is odd how closely the Georgian

"Ronie. Scale Dante, 24th By the generosity of the Countess intellectual resembles Butler, ex of Birkenhead two unpublished

March, 1877.

One of cept in originality and genius. And letters of unique Interest have been

a consignment of old "My dear Eleanor,—A stick of books, thrown aside for destruction, by the Georgian intellectual I mean

good red sealing-wax I want very was recently put up to auction at a famous London book salesroom. It much and an English Plutarch was a complete copy of ""The Tra- (Langhorne) I want still more.gical Death of David, Beaton, Bis- Now if you can bring me these hoppe of Sainct Andrews, in Scat- you'll set me up for the summer, land," by Sir David Lindsay, pub- lished in 1540. The only ather But I fear 'twill be some incon-complete copy known is in the Bri- venience to you, If so don't think tlsh Museum. The book at ono of it. Just go to the rat Ban-time belonged to Humphrey Dyson. bury bookseller and pick up the an Elizabethan attorney, who was first Plutarch you can lay your

connected with the publication of hands on. The flatian one I do the First Follo Shakespeare.

The "worthless" book brought

the reaction from Butlerism.

You

enn spot Butler's influence all over

the place in the lives and thought intellectual of our time! And that of these more mature intellectuals. other combination of a very quiet. I am not thinking now simply of almost shrinking, manner with a

of a general out.

ther than that.

And

Raymond and Ricketts' Recollec- tions of Oscar Wilde, from the Nonesuch Press, is a slim volume printed by Mr. G. W. Jones in his I picked up the Nonesuch "But, The "Father and Son" and the Pauli opinions or even Estienne type. An attractive title- leriana" and theu found I had Mrs. sections are fairly valuable Butler-look. Oddly enough, it goes fur calculated brutality of statement? And the careful disassociation of hage, good press work, and an ex- Stillman's "Samuel Butler: A Mid-lana. Alfred's chapter is, of course, cellent paper combine to make a Victorian Modern" waiting on my very amusing, for Alfred, clerk, It is as if, back there in the sex from romantic emotion.

even the frequent journoys abroad, pleasing book. Another small bank shelf, so I settled down to read both valet, secretary, companion, all com- sixties and seventies, Butler evol- especially to Italy, appear to have

ved a pattern man for the intellec-bocume a legacy of his. from the Nonesuch Press, Donne's books and to think about Butler. bined, was a character. Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, The Nonesuch volume, which is This is the last notice from Al-tuals of two generation later to

Butler seems to have been to the is a good reader's edition, handy in a limited edition and very de-fred to the effect that Samuel But- copy. I repest, it is not simply the

Georgian intellectual life what and clear. The type is Monotype lightfully produced, is really a se- ler, Esq., is to buy himself a new iconoclasm and studied hedonian Rousseau was to the old Romantics. Plantin. Now that there is a light lection from Butler's own accounts hat on Wednesday morning, the 8th number of modern novela that have! And, let us give him his due, he was face to this type, we have, in reality, his relations with various peo of November, 1893. Failing to do have been copied. Think of the an addition to the number of old his father, Pauli, Festing Jones bus so there will be an awful scene on number of modern novels that have great an original as Rousseau. faces available for book work. servant, Alfred, and Miss Savage. his return to Clifford's Inn.-Al-come out of Butler's "Way of Alle was not a man of his own time,

The Golden Cockerel's most ambi- There is nothing of any great mo- fred.

Flesh." (Which, by the way, Mrs. as these later intellectuals are of

their time. (A fuct the tious production of the year is an ment in the book, but even if you It is difficult not to like Alfred. Stillman, like some others, over- ter sometimes overlook.) Ho edition of Twelfth Night, decorated are not specially interested in But- Mrs. Stillman's critical biography protsen.). with some originality by Mr. Ericiler, you can read it with pleasure. a sound piece of work, but is Ravilious. The two colours on the

wastes too much space in telling ene what one already knows about Butler's books.

*

*

*

Is

Reputation Still Rising? She makes great play, as well she might, with Butler's astonishing

Think of the way in which Butler carefully avoided the normal emo- tional relationships of son, lover. husband, father, and yet, being by no means a cold fish, would sud- denly hurl himself into some odd emotional relationship, such as that with Pauli or young Faesh. Don't you know people of our time like that?

lat-

was as strange a creature to be in England of the 'aixes as the Dodo would have been, if it could have Been found wandering about Clir. ford's Inn.

*

not like.

"The 14th April I look forward £445. to with great desire and hope At another auction room, some that nothing will prevent your Florence Nightingale letters and a visit. Walter has a little book to Bible and Prayer Book inscribed by send me, Shelley's 'Adonnie' and her for James Edward Quick, a roll of prints, you see how I Crimean soldier, were offered, and encumber youi,

they brought £83. A rare first adi- "All the beautiful Easter which tion of Dickens's "The Battle of you will remember has come to Life" (1846) was sold elsewhere an end as the Pope thinks it was for the record price of £260, all theatrical, and will not allow

it any more--yet he is making a paragraph 5 was Kente's school- dozen Cardinale and what will be friend, who, in his "Recollections do with em without the Easter of Writere," provided the later bio- Bhow.

graphers with most of their know- "I am glad to tell you that I ledge of the poet's early days. am well again and have done my The second letter is from Rosa Pot of Basil, which is thought to Llanos Keats, daughter of Fanny be if not my best work at least Keats (Mme. Valentin Llanos) and the most expressive I have ever niece of the poet. This letter is done. It's as a tribute to the dated from Madrid, January 27, momory of Keats.

1990, soon after the death of her "On the 18th there died at mother (December, 1889), and in a Genoa Mr.

Charles Cowden reply to a letter of condolence from Clarke, 90 years of age, he and Mrs. Furneaux. in it are given (I believe) were the only two particulars of the last days of personal friends of the Poct liv- Fanny Keats, and of her own life ing. I am 84 so I may hope there in Madrid. As a link in the Keats is still time for me-My dear family chain it is a relic of great Mother lived to 88 and my sister interest. tella me I am so like her."

title-page perhaps hardly agree (Continued from previous column.) with the blackness of the type. Book of the year, perhaps as good as From the Raven Press we have a anything Mr. Bruce Rogers has

You may look where you will, but very entertaining book, Southey's ever achieved. Some may find the

you will not find many more thor Vision of Judgment, together with typography and paper a little too

ough originals than the author of Byron's antire, the one set in Bas-grey: but Mr. Rogers has never modernity:

Erewhon" and "The Way of All kerville and the other in Bodinl. belonged to the black, Morris It is not surprising that Butler's

Flesh," and, beat of all, the "Note- The printers havu even dared to school. The Aesop which he is pre-appeal should be so great in our day

books." His was one of those raro mix lines of capitals of the two all paring, to be printed at Oxford, and that it was so negligible in his.

A Clever Mixture.

minds that take nothing on trust. wrong. but apparently is not; in may be a rival to the Odyssey. His temper fits with extraordinary

It is difficult to read him at his fact, the titlepage, with the help of Another magnificent book is an prevision into our own, ints all that Think, tuo, of the way in which best and not, eagerly and delight- a pleasant device, is x success. edition of Sir Thomas Browne's most sharply differentiates it from Butler, all his life, would hastily edly, agree with more than half he Urne Burial, printed by the Curwen that of the latter half of the nine-diamiss whole crowds of great or writes. And yet, no matter how The anonymous translation of the Press for Messrs. Cassell, with teenth century, in which he wrote. considerable artists of different much you may admire, it is difficult Odyssey, produced under the super-stencilled illustrations by Paul He was rebellious not with the kinds, and yet idolise one or two also to read about him, to have his vision of Mr. Bruce Rogers, has Nash. The title-page is a careful manner and perceptions of his day, Handel, for instance. This unres-long and busy life spread out before been set up at Cambridge in Mono- composition in Centaur capitals. but of ours, and this distinguishes sonable combination of tolerance you, and not feel that, though he

"Your loving Daddy." type Centaur and printed by Sir while the text is set in Bembo. An him from even the most rebellious in most spheres with complete in-exploded so many shams, the truth Severn died in 1879, and Was Emery Walker. The decoration other large book from the Curwen of his contemporaries and has made tolerance in one sphere, the aesthe-about things had passed him by. buried by the side of Keats in the consists of a circular ornament Press for the Astolat Press is Mr. him the one Victorian writer whose įtic, belongs to a type we all know. I for one always find something|Protestant Cemetery, Rome. printed in black and gold at the C. R. Ashbee's Peckover, a follo set works are increasingly rend, whose Yet before Butler it seems very faintly fatuous about this brilliant-"Pot of Basil" mentioned in par- opening of each book; the subjects'în double columns in Baskerville.[reputation is in the ascendant, who rare.

ly humorous philosopher. And agraph 4 is the picture now hang- of the illustrations are adapted. The title-page, however, is in Cas-is in fact still and increasingly And then that curious mixture something dusty and melancholy, ing in Keats House. It was pre- from Greek vases. The beauty of lon; presumably the capitals of "news."

of inward sentimentality with an too. It is as if, refusing so much.sented in 1925 by the late Arthur these ornaments and the superb Baskerville are found to be lacking This is rather over-stated-for outward parade of a total lack of he also contrived to refuse the very Severn in memory of his father. typography make this the

lone or two other Victorian writers, sentiment, how typical that is of the Waters of Life. Why?

The C. C. Clarke mentioned in

Anestin colour.

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