In an interview reported in the Tribune of June 14, Mr. J. Henry Harper was quoted as saying, apropos of a cablegram to the effect that the writing of "The Martians" was completed:—
"He assures me that his new story will not be ready for the publishers until December, 1896. I cannot tell you much about the book itself yet, but it will not be in any sense a sequel to 'Trilby' except so far as it will succeed that book. The new story will deal in its opening chapters with French school life, and then with English life, both fashionable and rowdy; then the artistic world of Antwerp and Dusseldorf is exploited, while the closing stages occur in England. There will be love in the tale, of course, and du Maurier also brings in the supernatural again. There will be plenty of liveliness and some tragedy. The book, I am given to understand, will be capable of illustration; but I am sorry to say there is some doubt as to whether du Maurier himself will illustrate it. It will depend entirely upon the state of his health, which of late has not been of the best. The length of the story will be greater than 'Trilby' and will run through about twelve numbers of Harper's Magazine, in which it will first be published in serial form."
As a matter of course, Mr. du Maurier has had no end of invitations to read and lecture in this country, but to all these invitations he has turned a deaf ear. In a recent letter to The Critic's Lounger, he expressed himself as flattered by these overtures, but added that his health would not permit of his accepting any of the tempting propositions. He might be more in the way of temptation, if it were not for the play of "Trilby." This brings him in almost as much money as readings would. We are told that he is in receipt of several hundred dollars a week from this source—not ten hundred, but very near it. This, surely, is a much easier way of earning money than travelling from one end of a big country to the other, for it costs him no greater exertion than the signing of his name to a check.
No one who loves "Trilby" should fail to read the "autobiographic interview" with du Maurier which Mr. Robert H. Sherard contributed, with illustrations, to McClure's Magazine for April, 1895. From this singularly intimate and interesting article, one learns that the author's first picture in Punch represented himself and his chum Whistler[A]; also, that the studio in the Latin Quarter where Trilby visited the three English artists was drawn from that of his master, Gleyre.
Mr. du Maurier's monogram, which appears on the title-page of this pamphlet, is reproduced from a carving on the table at which the staff contributors to Punch dine once a week, and on which many of them have made similar inscriptions. We are indebted for it to McClure's Magazine.
Mr. du Maurier and Mr. Whistler
The first two or three of the following paragraphs appeared on the Lounger's page in The Critic of 16 June, 1894, and were reprinted, with most of the Whistler-du Maurier items that succeed them, in the issue of Nov. 17.
