GRUB STREET GOSSIP.
(By our Special Parasitic Penman.)
How I Got There and Back is the title of a new story of adventurous exploration which Messrs. Jones, Younger announce for immediate publication. The author, Mr. J. Minch Howson, whose text has been revised by the publishers, has had some astonishing experiences as a bonzo-hunter in the Aruwhimi forest. On one occasion he was rescued by a mad elephant from the jaws of an okapi, into which he had inadvertently fallen while flying from a gorilla. During his residence among the pygmies Mr. Howson became such an adept with the long blow-pipe that they offered him the headship of the tribe; but, as this involved the adoption of anthropophagous habits, he was reluctantly obliged to decline the honour.
Mr. Bamborough, the famous violinist, who recently changed his name by deed poll from Bamberger, has compiled a further volume of reminiscences based on his experiences as a travelling virtuoso in all four hemispheres. Some of these have already been made public in the Press, but in a condensed form. He now tells us for the first time in full detail his astounding adventures in New Guinea, where he was captured and partially eaten by cannibals, and his awful ordeal in the Never-Never Land, when he was attacked simultaneously by an emu and a wallaby, and conquered them both by the strains of his violin. The volume, which will be published by the House of Pougher and Kleimer, is profusely illustrated with portraits of Mr. Bamborough at various stages of his career, before and after the execution of the deed poll; of Mrs. Bamborough and their three gifted children, Wotan, Salome and Isolde Bamborough; and of her father, Sir Pompey Boldero, F.R.G.S., formerly Attorney-General of Pitcairn Island. It is further enriched with a number of letters in fac-simile from the Begum of Bhopal, General Huerta, the Lord Chief Justice, Madame Humbert, Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, Mr. Clement Shorter, Mrs. Alec Tweedie and the late King Theebaw of Burmah.
Messrs. Vigo announce the speedy publication of a volume of reminiscences from the pen of Count Lio Rotsac, the famous Bohemian revolutionary. In it special interest attaches to the long and desperate struggle between the Count and his rival, Baron Aracsac, which ended in the supersession of the latter and his confinement in the gloomy fortress prison of Niola Stelbat.
Miss Poppy McLurkin, the composer of that delightful song Peter Popinjay, of which over a quarter of a million copies have been sold or given away, has expanded the four verses of her lyric into a full-length novel, which Messrs. Gulliver will publish under the same title. Miss McLurkin, who is still on the sunny side of thirty, is one of the few female performers on the bagpipes in the literary profession.
New novelists are always welcome if only for the titles of their books, for, after all, perusal of their contents is not compulsory. In this category may be included Telepathic Theodora, by Beryl Smuts; The Rottenest Story in the World, by Dermot Stuggy; and In the Doldrums, by Wally Gogg.
