Posthumous Fame.

Most railway centres, if not all, have their local libraries. Some of these are comparatively up-to-date. I wonder if even the most up-to-date of them have added to their fiction department one of the late Mrs. Webb's novels? Unfortunately for Mrs. Webb she began to publish her books when the Great War was at its worst, and although, first, “The Golden Arrow” (1916), “The Spring of Joy,” and “Gone to Earth” (1917) were comparatively well received by the critics, the distractions of the world conflict out- page 30 weighed their words of somewhat subdued praise, and it is questionable if Mrs. Webb received for her three books sufficient to pay for the paper and ink used in their production. Such result, after three trials, seemed to dishearten her. During the next two years she did not publish anything. In the third year, however, she once more tempted fate, publishing, in 1920, “The House in Dormer Forest,” but with a like result. Then, after another gap of three years, she unblished “Seven for a Secret.” Although the critics quietly approved her their praise was not sufficiently loud to the active attraction of the reading public The following year she issued “Precious Bane.” Although in this, unfortunately, the last novel, she touched high water mark, the public, not knowing did not rush to buy the volume. Nevertheless it sold steadily until the first edition was exhausted. A second edition followed, and it too, was soon sold out. Then a third edititon was issued, but the book reviewers did not it worth special mention! Two years aftter its first issue, Mrs. Webb was awarded the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize. This encouraged her publisher to offer her liberal terms for her next book, and she at once started to write it. When this new novel, which was to be entitled “Armour Wherein. He Trusted,” was about half completed, she suffered a nervous breakdown, and destroyed the manuscript. She began again, but before she could finish the story she died. And when she died the literary world did not seem to be cognisant of its great loss. Mrs. Webb seemed utterly forgotten. So the days and months passed until, at the Royal Literary Fund dinner, in April last year, the Right. Hon. Mr. Baldwin, the Imperial Prime Minister, referred to Mrs. Webb as “a writer of genius strangely neglected.” The fickleness of the press was never better made manifest than in the case of Mrs. Webb. The morning following Mr. Baldwin's eulogistic reference to her work, the leading London literary journals and newspapers vied with each other in the use of superlatives in describing her achievements. All Mrs. Webb's books are worth their room on your library shelves—especially “Precious Bane”

One word more. Mrs. Webb was also a poet but her volume of poems failed to find a publisher. A minor poet, doubtless, but most of her verses are above the average, and are now included in the collected edition of her works, issued by Jonathan Cape, London. Among her poems we find the following lines, which form an appropriate close to the foregoing remarks concerning their author:—

This would have pleased her once. She does not care
At all to-night.
They give her tears, affection's frailest flowers
And fold her close in praise and tenderness.
She does not heed.