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W. and G. Foyle of London. have called it "The Romance of a Bookshop", and it is the story of the development of a great business from nothing. In 1902 two sons of a Shoreditch grocer failed in civil service examinations. Having no further use for their textbooks, they decided to sell them by means of an advertisement. The answers to this advertisement were so many that these two clever young men perceived a market. The result a firm with a stock of more than 1,250,000 volumes on shelves measuring 22 miles.

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Schools start hither and yon. My favorite school is, of course, the Bread Loaf School of English. There I shall hie me in July, to consort with violent Sidney Cox from out west, who teaches English with such a verve and dash that he could scare a tin woodman into flights of poetry. Then, there is the Paramount Picture School, which the Famous Players are starting in their New York City studio. Here, the entrance requirements are somewhat different from those of Bread Loaf common school education is all that is necessary. Boys must be from eighteen to thirty; and although a girl may enter at sixteen, she may not apply after twenty five. Both boys and girls must have "good looks", further defined as exceptional beauty of face and figure. Tuition, moreover, moreover, is five hundred dollars a term. It's what I call a school de luxe. In the capable hands of Winifred Lenihan, famed as Saint Joan, the Theatre Guild School of Acting will start functioning next season. I have not yet seen the syllabus, but if Miss Lenihan has anything to do with it, there will be a large infusion of sanity, you may be sure. Actual beauty will not, of course, be demanded. On the stage it is possible

for makeup to do almost anything to the face and figure; but the movie camera is a cruel detective to ferret out disguises.

From Minnesota comes word that local celebrities are being honored by the women's clubs. The State Federation at its midwinter meeting gave them a send off, while the following newspaper account of a club program shows that home talent does not go neglected in the twin cities:

Minnesota Writers' Day was observed Wednesday by the Merriam Park Women's Club. The club met at the House of Hope Presbyterian Church, Summit avenue and Avon street. Those featured on the program which the women sponsored, included poets.

James Gray, dramatic critic of the "Pioneer Press-Dispatch", and author of a novel soon to be published by Scribner's, gave an interesting talk on St. Paul writers, the Boyds, the Flandraus, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and others. Mrs. B. F. Pelton read a number of poems by Robert Cary, some of those from the pen of Sarah Buffem Ramaley and Blanche J. Chapin's "Minnesota". Mrs. J. A. Bennett read from the works of Lily Long and Arthur Upson, the young poet who met a tragic death in Lake Bemidji a dozen or so years ago. Cushing Wright talked on "The Art of the Short Story", and also read a detective story of his authorship.

Prizes will be awarded by THE BOOKMAN for the best poems appearing in "The Fun Shop" between June 1 and December 25. "The Fun Shop", edited by Maxson Foxhall Judell, is a department of humor, appearing in eighty five leading newspapers of the United States and Canada, with which we are cooperating in a contest for the purpose of discovering more writers of humorous verse. All the poems accepted and published during this period by Mr. Judell will be paid for at his regular rates in addition to being entered in the contest. The awards will be $50 for first prize, $25 for second prize, $15 for third prize, $10 for fourth prize,

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and twenty five one dollar prizes. The contest is open to everyone. poems must be original-not previously published, not translations or adaptations. They must be no longer than 24 lines, and shorter if possible. They should be submitted to Maxson F. Judell, Fun Shop Headquarters, 250 Park Avenue, New York. A second contest will extend from December 26 to May 1, 1926. Any contestant may submit as many poems as he desires. Each poem must contain the name and complete address of the author. And no manuscript will be returned unless it is accompanied by a stamped, self addressed envelope. The judges will be Maxson Foxhall Judell, chairman; Professor William Lyon Phelps of Yale; M. E. Foster, editor of the Houston "Chronicle"; W. L. Harrison, managing editor of the Oklahoma "Oklahoman "; F. W. Clarke, managing editor of the Atlanta "Constitution"; Harris M. Crist, managing editor of the Brooklyn "Eagle"; John Farrar, editor of THE BOOKMAN; and Frank Crowninshield, editor of "Vanity Fair". This is the only prize we know of being offered for verse of this sort, and it should be an appetizer for the columnist, the jingle writer, and even the more serious minded poet who occasionally is to be found chuckling over a gay parody of his own manufacture.

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and that's the way I like to read, too not just the things they tell me I should, or the publishers say I must,

From "The story of Wilbur the Hat"

but just the things I really want to read, such as going back to shout out a few lines from the "Iliad", or to chuckle over "Tristram Shandy", or to wish I could read Dante so that I could make out the other side of my Italian-English "Inferno". Now one of the first books I'd take under those circumstances would be Hendrick Van Loon's "The Story of Wilbur the Hat". It has no sense or perhaps it has cosmic significance. Either way, you will find magic in Mr. Van Loon's illustrations. I like particularly the one of hell. It looks like such a warm place, which is the way we've been told that it should look, and I'm all for living up to the old traditions - in the imagination, at least. I like also the picture wherein Wilbur is floating in the midst of a lake, accompanied by Cedric the cricket.

The Authors' League asks that the following information be printed:

The Authors' League Fund, incorporated

under the laws of the State of New York in 1917, is an organ designed to give aid to artists, authors, dramatists, etc. in need through age or misfortune. It is the only organization to which members of its allied professions can apply for quick, confidential service in the form of loans without interest or security. No sex, age or race limits are drawn, neither need the recipient be a member of the Authors' League, the only stipulation being that the case be pressing and deserving.

Although established and conducted by the Authors' League, the Fund is a distinct organization, and no part of League dues goes toward its support, which is maintained solely by voluntary contribution, all donors of five dollars or more becoming members for the period of one year. books are audited by certified public accountants and reports made at frequent intervals to both the Fund and the League.

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The Fund hopes shortly to be able to establish a permanent endowment, the principal of which will be preserved intact and the interest used for needy cases. benefit entertainment will soon be held to obtain money with this object in view. Pensions and a home for aged and incapacitated authors and artists is another end toward which the Fund is striving.

The officers of the Fund are George Creel, president; Charles Dana Gibson, first vice president; Booth Tarkington, second vice president; Owen Davis, third vice president; Ellis Parker Butler, secretary; Luise Sillcox, treasurer. The Board of Directors, the majority of which must be League members, consists of George Ade, Irving Bacheller, George Barr Baker, Rex Beach, Eugene Buck, Ellis Parker Butler, Irvin S. Cobb, C. B. Falls, Edna Ferber, James Forbes, Montague Glass, John Golden, Arthur Guiterman, Ruth Hale, Will Irwin, Orson Lowell, George Barr McCutcheon, J. Hartley Manners, Alice Duer Miller, Kathleen Norris, Harvey O'Higgins, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Tony Sarg, Charles Scribner, Frederick A. Stokes, Julian Street, Walter Darwin Teague, William Allen White, Mrs. Payne Whitney, Jesse Lynch Williams.

Here is a cause of interest to all who care for writing and writers.

"Sonnets of a Simpleton" is a good title for a book. It was given to a series of genial verses by A. M. Sulli

van, and published, curiously enough, in Newark. Grant C. Knight sends a copy of his "Superlatives" to the Gossip Shop. I have a feeling that he has a sly suspicion that the superlative habit is one which is not to be overlooked in these pages. However, I liked his book: it is clever, and has informative value as well. In case you have not seen it, he writes of things literary under chapter headings such as "The Greatest Rogue", "The Most Unreal", etc., etc. Having abandoned the editorial "we" in the Gossip Shop, I find myself wondering what prompted Mr. Knight to use it throughout an entire volume. However, each man to his own taste. Roland Holt's "A List

of Music for Plays and Pageants" is a carefully put together and useful little book. For collectors and not, to me at least, of great literary distinction

are Joseph Conrad's "Tales of Hearsay" and Lewis Carroll's "Novelty and Romancement". The former are stories by the great novelist hitherto unpublished in book form; the latter a newly discovered story by the author of "Alice in Wonderland". Each month I collect on the corner of my desk these tidbits of one sort and another. The record of plays produced under the direction of David Belasco, autographed and explicit, naturally gives me a few twinges about the editorial in the March BOOKMAN, but no record of past achievement can quite blot out this season in my mind. "Fancy's Garden" from the Rowny Press of Los Angeles is a beautifully made and illustrated volume. It contains poems by Luisa Re Mondini. Now I hate to carp, but for a beautiful book the case is execrable in my humble opinion, of course. The orange backing is ugly and the proportions seem to me all wrong. However, the inside is lovely, I'll admit.

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Sinclair Lewis. $2.00 By Virginia Woolf. $3.50

WILLIAM BLAKE

In this World

By

Harold Bruce. $3.00

Harcourt, Brace & Company, 383 Madison Ave., N. Y.

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