LITERARY PITFALLS.
The Chronicle publishes a most interesting letter received from Mr. G. B. Burgin, who lately, if our memory serves us right, completed his fiftieth novel. He writes:—
"A hitch has arisen about the publication of my novel, The Rubber Princess. It deals with an air raid on London, etc., and it has been pointed out to me that if it appears before the War is over it will probably be suppressed, and that I shall be mulcted in pains and penalties. I have therefore withdrawn it and substituted (for the Spring), with Hutchinsons, The Hut by the River, of which I have great hopes. It is a Canadian romance, with a pretty love story and a nice little mystery at the end."
It will, we are sure, be a consolation to Mr. Burgin, to whose agility and versatility we desire to render our homage, to learn that he is not singular in his experience.
Only a few days ago we received a letter from Mr. Bimbo Posh, the famous Suffolk realist, recounting the circumstances which have led to the postponement of his eagerly-expected romance, The Synthetic Sovereign.
It appears that Mr. Posh, a man of a most scientific imagination, assigned the rôle of hero in his story to a marvellous automaton. Unfortunately for him he was not content with generalities, but described the process by which this artificial superman was produced in such minute detail that his publishers realised that it might be positively prejudicial to our safety to make it known. The sequel had best be told in Mr. Posh's own pathetic words:—
"At first I was fearfully upset, though convinced by the arguments of my publishers (Messrs. Longbow and Green-i'-th'-Eye). But a happy inspiration seized me as I was ascending the escalator at Charing Cross, and in exactly a fortnight I had finished another novel, entirely divorced from the present, entitled, In Dear Old Daffy-land. It is an idyllic story of Suffolk in the days of the Heptarchy, founded on an ancestral tradition of the Posh family. It runs to about 60,000 words, and Mr. Longbow, who read it at a sitting, thinks it the finest thing I have done."
Curiously enough, just as we go to press comes a letter from Miss Miriam Eldritch, apologising for the withdrawal of her volume of poems, Attar of Roses, in view of the fact that one of the leading establishments for the distilling of this perfume is in Bulgaria. Miss Eldritch, however, has proved fully equal to the occasion, for by a great effort she has composed, in little over one hundred hours, a cycle of one hundred lyrics, to which she has given the title, at once alluring and innocuous, of Love in Lavender.