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HOW OUR NOVELISTS WRITE THEIR BOOKS

A Symposium of Fininent Authors

ERE is a symposium on how our leading authors create their

books. They have been asked to tell us about the coming of ileas, the working of them out, the planning of plots and scenes, the development of characters, the actual writing of a story, or its dictation. We are admitted, as it were, to so many literary workshops, including that of the most illustrious living English writer, Thomas Hardy.

For years now, Mr. Hardy has only written verse, and it is fitting, therefore, that we should be privileged to reproduce the MS. of his poem, ** The House of Silence,” from * Moments of Vision.”” It is notable for its clear, vigorous, artistic hand- writing, and is specially interest- ing for the alterations made in several of the lines. Many of Mr. Ilardy’s

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MSS. are among the treasures of our great libraries and muscums, that of “Tess of the D'Urber- villes 7" being in the British Museum, while ‘* The Trumpet Major " is in the Royal

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MR. THOMAS HARDY

The MS. of Mr. Thomas Hardy's poem, “The House of Silence.”