Already Douglas Stewart may be acclaimed as one of New Zealand's finest poets. I do not think he has reached his thirties, yet his name is listed in Australia as a singer well worthy of notice. Now he has collected the best of his verse. Chastely printed and bound by Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs, it is published under the title of “Green Lions.” The prodigality of gifts showered by Nature on this land has found a beautiful echo in the heart of this poet, and he has sung of our land as few have done before him. “Stewart's silvery tenor,” as one Australian critic has it. Let me quote one verse only from “Prelude and Gold in Taranaki”:—

We did not know in those clear stone-cool dewtimes

When the last light in swathes of pale-green silk

Softly enfolded all this lovely land, And the grey cows with spicy scent of milk

Drawled from the stream at the brown boy's command,

That we were one with all the delicate birds,

And cautious hares, and slow milk-heavy herds.

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Do you remember “Mac” the secondhand bookseller who hung out his sign in several streets in Wellington over a decade ago — D. W. MacClure, the tall, the lean book fossiker? I met him in Auckland recently, still selling old books, and seemingly taller and leaner than ever. He told me how he found a pound note the other day in an old book he had marked for sale at one shilling. It was a very old bank note issued by the Bank of Glasgow in 1876. The trouble is that “Mac” cannot cash the ancient piece of paper, for the issuing bank closed its doors in 1890, being taken over by the London and Counties Bank. However, “Mac” hopes to sell the pound note eventually as a collector's item.

I have received from the recently formed Australian Limited Editions Society a copy of their finely printed prospectus. The Hon. John Lane Mullins is president of the new organisation, leading artists and writers form the council, and Mr. Benjamin N. Fryer is secretary. The first book listed for publication is “A narrative of the Voyage to Botany Bay,” which was first published in 1879 and ran to three editions. Adrian Feint, who has designed many fine bookplates, and Perce Green (a former New Zealander) will be responsible for the illustrations and the format.

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Here are a few interesting facts about the All Nations prize winning novel, “The Street of the Fishing Cat,” reviewed elsewhere in this issue. The book won the first £4,000 prize, being selected from over 7,000 entries. It has been published in eleven languages in fifteen countries. The total first printing was a quarter of a million copies. Why, a struggling writer could hardly hope to even dream of such a public.

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Once every year or so a fellow with a reckless, careless smile on his face looks into my office and sells me just another booklet of verse he has written. His name is Shirley S. Morrison, and he has sold his way through New Zealand with his poems, and where the inspiration for verse, or a printer's support, is lacking he will sell anything from patent collapsible chairs to blackboard wipers. His verse is dashed off in carefree, singing style, but now and then you may happen on a line that lingers. This happy wanderer has now produced another booklet “Rendezvous and Other Verses.” He was a soldier in the Great War. Listen to one verse:

Though I am old my heart is young, The guns that smashed my world for me

Have brought me deeper songs unsung, Awaken greater liberty.

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