a Little Theatre company in Yonkers, New York.

Reita Lambert Ranck, who wrote the story, "Withered Petals," printed in Harper's Magazine for June, sold her first story, "Sunday," to the Bellman in February, 1918. Before publication was suspended, the Bellman published four other stories from Mrs. Ranck's pen, and since then she has had about thirty short stories and novelettes published in Reedy's Mirror, the Stratford Journal, Ainslee's, Smith's, Young's Magazine, Top Notch, Telling Tales, the Designer, Harper's Magazine, and the New York Tribune.

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Brayton Norton, author of the serial, "Devil's Spawn," now running in Sunset, is a native of Kentucky, but has lived most of his life in California, where he received lis education, graduating from the University of California in 1906. Prior to the war Mr. Norton was engaged in business, but had also done newspaper work for a number of SouthCalifornia dailies. He attended the First Officers Training Camp Presidio of San Francisco and was commissioned in August, 1917, returning from overseas in March, 1919. At the suggestion of his college classmate, Jackson Gregory, Mr. Norton took up fiction writing and began his first novel at Mr. Gregory's Home in East Auburn. This was called " Sleeping Acres," and was published in the Argosy-All Story. "Devil's Spawn," his second novel, will be published by the Bobbs Merrill Company next Fall. In addition to some short stories, sold to the Street & Smith publications, Mr. Norton is now engaged on his third novel. Mr. Norton attributes such success as he has won to the merciless "panning" of his manuscript-critics, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Gregory, and to his wife.

Henry C. Pitz, the author and illustrator of the poem, "Faery Magic," in the June St. Nicholas is by profession an illustrator whose recreation is the writing of verses and fairy tales. Mr. Pitz was born in 1895 in Philadelphia, was educated in the grammar and high schools of that city, and was graduated from the Art School of the Pennsyl

vania Museum in 1917. The following year he taught drawing at the same school, contributing children's verses to the newspapers and the small Sunday-school publications of the city. The next year he spent in the hospital and ambulance service in France. After his discharge from the army, he began to illustrate for the magazines the Cosmopolitan, St. Nicholas, the Century, Everybody's, and others. Since Mr. Pitz began to write again, he has placed verses with Boys' Life and the Philadelphia Sunday Record, and he is now doing a series for St. Nicholas, two of which have already appeared. Mr. Pitz is also gathering material for a book of children's verses and tales, to be published with his own illustrations.

Nan Terrell Reed, who wrote the poem, Dreams," which Sunset printed in its May issue, says that while the poem holds a few of her own dreams, it mostly typifies the life of her mother, "who, in spite of what the world would call 'years of toil' has certainly kept 'a perfect meter' in the poem of her own soul." While Mrs. Reed has been writing poems since childhood, she never sent anything out for publication until after her marriage, when she decided to make a business of poetry writing, and made it a point to write at least one poem a day and to send out a certain number to various magazines. She says she read that Leslie's Weekly bought Ella Wheeler Wilcox's first three poems for ten dollars, and adds that the same magazine bought her own first two poems for eleven dollars. Since then she has had a small book, "Prose and Poems," published, and has had manuscripts accepted by the New Success Magazine, John Martin's Magazine, the Picture Play Magazine, Mt. McGregor All-Story, Teling the Optimist, Tales, Youth's Companion, the Woman's World, the Woman's Weekly, Social Progress, Nestle Waving Company, A. M. Davis Card Company, Campbell Art Company, and P. F. Volland Company.

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Virginia Watson, who wrote the poem. "The Pine Tree," which appeared in Harper's Magazine for June, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and was educated there and in pri

vate schools in Europe. She now makes her home in New York city. She is the author of two books, "With Cortes the Conquerer," and "The Princess Pocahontas," and is an occasional contributor of verse and translations to the first-class magazines.

CURRENT LITERARY TOPICS.

Fashions in Words. - -"Allocation," said the word monger, "is a word that is being given considerable prominence. It became popular during the war in connection with ships and loans. The 'allocation' of shipping and the 'allocation' of loans came to be current phrases. Not long ago the senate called on the President for information as to how he had allocated" certain funds. In a recent newspaper story about an operatic benefit in one of the big cities the newspapers said that 'the allocation of boxes is to be based on the size and date of the contribution.'

"Allocation' is so closely allied to 'allot,' 'assign,' and 'apportion' that the shipping and treasury authorities might just as well have said the allotment' of ships and the 'apportionment' of funds or loans. But words come into fashion and writers and speakers fall into or fall for the prevailing mode in words as some persons do for the prevailing colors in socks or neckties and the prevailing style in haircuts. In the 'olden times' that is, when grandfather was in business 'allocation' had somewhat of a run as a financial word and one could often hear and see the phrase 'allocation of the shares of the company.'"-Washington Star.

Is Newspaper Work Good Training for Novel-writing? A letter printed in the Hartford Courant says:- One of the first questions debated by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when the snake ran the New World News, with Cain and Abel as its staff, was whether newspaper reporting was good training for novel writing and this question has been argued ever since and may have been the subject of discussion while Noah had everybody cornered in the ark without an umbrella. The latest contributor to the symposium is Sinclair Lewis, once of New Haven and later of "Main Street" fame. Mr. Lewis finds that it is injurious to the prospects of

those intending to write serious fiction to run a typewriter in a newspaper office. Mr. Lewis's findings are printed in THE WRITER.

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Mr. Lewis says, among other things that the reporter sees merely the surface aspects of life and does not have the time to investigate the details of what he sees." This, apparently, is true of many novelists who have been longer in the game than the ex-Elm City man, for there are poor novelists and good novelists, as there are poor reporters and good reporters. Unfortunately for the Lewis argument, he has far from the proper understanding of what a real newspaper man is and seems to be describing that variety of animal known as the cub reporter, who never outgrows it. The real newspaper man does not see merely the surface, and if that is all he sees he is n't a newspaper man, even if he gets his. biscuits and beans with the money received from the office of a daily newspaper.

The achievements of newspaper men who have gone far below the surface and dug up crime clues which "professional" detectives have failed to unearth, have been enough in evidence to show that Mr. Lewis is writing of newspaper men as he has met them, or as he thinks he has met them, rather than as they are.

While the reporter has no time to go into details. according to the Lewis findings, "novelists can write only about a comparatively few subjects, of which they must have a thorough knowledge." Guess again, Brother Lewis, for novelists write about everything under the sun and, many times they make the newspaper man laugh at their ignorance; but this is no attack on the writer of fiction, who, like the reporter, runs all the way from bad to good, with many stopping over for life at the way station known as indifferent.

As a matter of pretty well acknowledged fact, newspaper work is regarded as good training for almost any vocation in life, and it is rather late in the day for Mr. Lewis to overrule this idea. He says that "the two qualifications essential to a successful literary career are exceptional skill in writing and a long period of apprenticeship," but he fails to tell how being a blacksmith or a ribbon clerk can be of more help to the seeker of a literary career than being a reporter, and

AND STYLE. George Sarton. Scribner's

for June. WHITMAN AND THE CULT OF CONFUSION. Norman Foerster. Nortrh American Review for June. A SPORT WRITER CONFESSES. Lawrence Perry. Bookman for June.

A TILT WITH TWO CRITICS (Stuart P. Sherman and Harold Stearns). Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant. Bookman for June.

FOUR YEARS, 1887-1891.

I. (Literary Reminiscences). William Butler Yeats. Dial for June. THE POETRY OF EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY. Llewellyn Powys. Double-Dealer for June.

SABOTAGING AMERICAN LITERATURE. Llewellyn Jones. Double-Dealer for June.

A WORD ABOUT KEATS. Harriet Monroe. Poetry for June.

RUSKIN'S CAREER VIEWED AS A TRAGEDY. With portrait. Current Opinion for June.

SHAKSPERE'S PURPOSE OF DROPPING SLY. Ernest P. Kuhl. Modern Language Notes for June. LETTING THE POET LIVE. Literary Digest for June 4.

POETRY THROUGH AN ENGINEER'S EYE. Literary Digest for June 25.

LIBRETTO WRITING. Musical Courier for June 16. THE PROGRESS OF POETRY: ENGLAND. Mark Van Doren. Nation for June 22.

THE RACE OF REVIEWERS. Henry Seidel Canby. Nation for June 22.

THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN NOVELISTS. VI. James Branch Cabell. Carl Van Doren. Nation for June 29.

PERSONALITY IN THE EDITORIAL PAGE. Fourth Estate for June 25.

GENERAL CHAS. H. Fourth Estate for June 25.

TAYLOR. With portrait.

NEWS AND NOTES.

Jesse Lynch Williams has been chosen president of the Authors' League of America, succeeding Rex Beach, who was not a candidate for re-election.

Theodore Maynard has accepted the chair of English literature at the Dominican College of San Rafael, California. Mr. Maynard came to this country about a year ago to lecture, and has prolonged his stay several times. Now he expects to remain indefinitely.

The State of Kentucky has bought Federal Hill, where Foster wrote "My Old Kentucky Home," and the place is to be preserved as a memorial.

Lytton Strachey is writing a study of Disraeli.

Charles Barclay is preparing a memoir of Mrs. Florence Barclay, author of "The Rosary," and will be glad to have any letters suitable for use in the biography forwarded to him at Limpsfield County, Oxted, Surrey, England. All letters sent will be returned after use.

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"How to Write Stories," by Walter B. Pitkin, associate professor of journalism in Columbia University, is published by the Independent Corporation (New York). A Canadian 'Who's Who and Why, 1921," edited by B. M. Greene, has been published by the International Press., Ltd., Montreal. Brentano's (New York) are the publishers in this country.

Colonel Norris G. Osborn has written a memorial of Isaac H. Bromley, who was so well known as a writer for the New York Tribune, and the book has been published by the Yale University Press. For twenty years. Mr. Bromley's widow has maintained a lecture course at Yale, endowed for subjects connected with "literature, journalism, and public affairs."

John P. Morton & Co. (Louisville, Ky.) have published "The Story of a Poet: Madison Cawein; His Intimate Life as Revealed by His Letters and other Hitherto Unpublished Material," by Otto A. Rothert.

The Stratford Company has published a brief biographical sketch of the life and work of the Southern poet-priest, Father Tabb, written by his niece, Jennie Masters Tabb, with an introduction by Dr. Charles Alphonso Smith.

A critical and biographical study of Henrik Ibsen, by Ida Ten Eyck Firkins, has just been published in pamphlet form by the H. W. Wilson Company, New York.

"Breviography," a book setting forth a system of writing by contracted forms, has been published by the Breviograph Systems Company, New York.

"Studies in Tennyson," by Henry van Dyke, the twelfth volume in the works of Henry van Dyke, has just been published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

A. K. Cook has written "A Commentary upon Browning's 'The Ring and the Book," " (Oxford University Press), which aims to give an explanation and illustration of the poet's thought and language when either are not clear.

Harcourt, Brace, & Co. will publish in the European Library an anthology, entitled "Modern Russian Poetry," compiled and translated by Babette Deutsch and Arrahm Yarmolinsky. Miss Deutsch has recently become Mrs. Yarmolinsky.

"Epochs of Italian Literature," by Cesare Folgino, giving a list of Italian authors and their works, is published by the Oxford University Press.

A collection of "Critical Essays of the Early Nineteenth Century," edited by Professor Raymond Macdonald Alden (Charles Scribner's Sons ), includes Wadsworth's Prefaces; Shelley's "Defence of Poetry"; and memorable papers and criticisms by Coleridge, Keats, Macaulay, Newman, De Quincey, Leigh Hunt, and others.

The Dial (New York) announces that it will make a payment of $2,000 each year to the one of its contributors who shall seem the most deserving. The money is in no sense a prize, as the Dial says there can be no competition in the arts, and is intended to represent a year of leisure. By giving it the Dial hopes to be of definite assistance each year to some young American writer.

"A Study of the Types of Literature," by Mabel Irene Rich (The Century Co.) is a textbook of English Literature.

The Century Company has issued a booklet biography of Professor Edward Alsworth Ross, author of "The Russian Bolshevik Revolution," which the publishers will send to any one upon request, free of charge.

The Oliver Ditson Company has paid $56000 to the estate of Mrs. Joan H. Webster, settling out of court the long-standing suit over royalties on the hymn, In the Sweet Bye and Bye." According to the bills as originally filed, Joseph Webster, the author of the hymn, signed a contract with Lyon & Healy of Chicago, June 9, 1865, by which Webster was to be given a royalty of three cents on each copy of the hymn sold. After the great Chicago fire, Lyon & Healy assigned to Oliver Ditson & Co. of Boston all interests in their publications. The suit was heard before a master in 1906, who made a finding for the defendant. No court action was taken and the case has remained on the books ever since.

The mailing and binding department of the Rumford Press, Concord, N. H., which prints many of the large magazines of the East, was destroyed by fire June 24. A considerable portion of the July edition of The Atlantic Monthly was lost. The damage is estimated at about $200,000.

The May and June issues of the Nineteenth Century and After contain a series of letters written by Thomas Carlyle to his friend Miss Wilson, which have lately been discovered.

The Burlington Magazine is now published in this country by the Medici Society of America, 755 Boylston street, Boston.

Gen. Francis Vinton Greene died in New York May 15, aged seventy years.

Rev. Sullivan H. McCollester, D. D., died at Keene, N. H., May 22, aged ninety-four. Brigadier General Horace Porter died in New York May 29, aged eighty-four.

Cornelia Warren died at Waltham, Mass., June 4, aged sixty-four.

General Chas. H. Taylor, editor and publisher of the Boston Globe, died in Boston June 22, aged seventy-four.