Literary Gossip.

the stumbling-blocks to Church progress , commercial affairs , temperance education , and other vital themes . The journal is called the Nottingham and Derby Home Reader and Exchange Gazette , and judging from the initial issues seems to be in vigorous hands .

One of the most remarkable things in latter day journalism is the prominence given by editors to the provision of family reading matter over and above the supply of news and other information which comes within the legitimate province of journalism . Almost every respectable newspaper has now its serial story , and a greater or less array of " specials . " As a noteworthy instance of hoAV largely fact and fiction are in some cases blended , we may

name the Evening News , a smart halfpenny daily , in the columns of which no less than three continued tales are UOAV concurrently appearing from the several pens of Miss Owens Blackburne , Harry Blith , and E . Lynch Dowdney .

The second volume of " Old Yorkshire , " announced a month or two back , is now in the hands of the subscribers , and a very valuable addition to antiquarian literature it is . We regret to notice that the editor , Mr . William Smith , F . S . A . S ., intimates in the preface that ill-health and other engagements will prevent him from bringing out a volume in regular annual sequence , as Avas at first promised . The two issues of the work already published have thrown no inconsiderable light upon Yorkshire history . Among the contributors we note the names of Messrs . William Andrews , F . R . N . S ., and T . Broadbent Trowsdale , whose writings in elucidation of archaeological subjects are not unknoAvn to readers of this magazine .

" Stanley Brereton , " Mr . Harrison Ainsworth ' s new story , is just about to be published by Routledge ' s . The veteran romance writer , in further token of the delight he has in being known as the " Lancashire novelist , " is inscribing the work to Alderman Baker , the Mayor of Manchester . Mr . W . Davenport Adams , who must be as industrious as a litterateur as he is accomplished , has edited yet another volume of Chatto and Windus ' s " Mayfair Library , " under the title of " Latter-day Lyrics . " This latest addition to that popular series is a garland of recent poetry , selected with admirable taste ancl ability .

The long-expected work on " The Alphabet , " from the erudite pen of Isaac Taylor , whose valuable " Words and Places " is to be found in every good library , will , we are glad to learn , he given to the world during the coming season . Though the cry has already been taken up elsewhere , we cannot refrain

from here entering our protest against the manner in which the works of our dearest authors are being hacked and mutilated , and having " the heart torn out of them , " to use the words of one feminine condenser , ley the catchpenny publishers . The delightful romances of Sir Walter Scott , the deathless creations of Dickens , and other books " not of an age , but for all time , " are being ruthlessly shorn of their inimitable beauty and completeness bliterary

y men and women whose own attainments ought to cause them to shrink with horror from such unwarrantable sacrilege . The world wants no mauled penny " Pickwicks " and " Waverleys , " when those books can be produced as their authors perfected them at a merely nominal price .