1906 - Literature

Literature

New York's Pierpont Morgan Library is completed in Italianate marble style to designs by McKim, Mead & White adjacent to J. P. Morgan's brownstone in East 36th Street to house the banker's prodigious collection of rare books, manuscripts, documents, and incunabula (books printed before 1501). Imported works of art are subject to a 20 percent duty under terms of the 1897 Revenue Act (books and manuscripts are exempt if they are intended for educational, philosophical, religious, or scientific purposes), so most of Morgan's paintings and sculpture remain in England, but he has engaged former Princeton University clerk Belle Greene (originally Greener), now 26, as his librarian upon the recommendation of his scholarly nephew Junius Spencer Morgan. She claimed to be 22 when he hired her late last year, Morgan does not know that the olive-skinned young woman's father, Richard Greener, was the first black to be graduated from Harvard, and she will prove invaluable to him in acquiring more European art treasures. The library will be opened to the public in 1924, a north wing will enlarge it in 1962, and it will be further enlarged in 1976.

A Manual of Style published by the University of Chicago will go through 14 editions in this century and a 15th early in the 21st century as it becomes virtually a bible of printing style, grammar, and punctuation for generations of copy editors and proofreaders. "Read everything as if you yourself were the author, and your reputation and fortune depended upon its accuracy," it says. "Don't stultify yourself and discredit the office by asking foolish questions on the proof."

Nonfiction: The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Brooks Adams, now 68, whose classic autobiographical work, privately printed, will be published in 1918 to acquaint the world with its author's dynamic theory of history; Inquiry into Sense Psychology (Untersuchungen zur Sinnespscychologie) by Franz Brentano; The Idea of Phenomenology (Die Idee der Phänomenologie) by Moravian-born German philosopher Edmund Husserl, 47, who has been influenced by Brentano; The Development of the Organization and Constitution of German Cities (Die Entwicklung des deutschen Städtewesens) by Berlin-born German political theorist and legal expert Hugo Preuss, 45; The Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht) by the late Friedrich Nietzsche, whose work has been grossly distorted by his sister Elisabeth (Förster-Nietzsche) and is published in two volumes (a one-volume edition appeared 5 years ago); The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, now 64, who is the Hearst correspondent at Washington, D.C.: "Admiration: our polite recognition of another's resemblance of ourselves"; "Beauty: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband"; "Bore: a person who talks when you wish him to listen"; "Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be"; "Destiny: a tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure"; "Epitaph: an inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a strong retroactive effect"; "Edible: good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm"; "History: an account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools"; "Once: enough"; "Politics: the conduct of public affairs for private advantage."

Fiction: The City of the Yellow Devil (Gorod Zholtogo D'yavola) by Maksim Gorky, who was imprisoned last year for his revolutionary activity but has had his sentence commuted to exile at the intervention of Western writers. Gorky has come to America to collect funds for the Bolshevik cause, but he has been ostracized since the revelation that his traveling companion was not his wife, and his novel is an attack on the American way of life; The Man of Property by English novelist John Galsworthy, 39, who introduces readers to Soames Forsyte and begins The Forsyte Saga that he will continue until 1922; Young Torless (Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Torless) by Austrian novelist Robert Musil, 25; The Tanner Children by Swiss novelist and short-story writer Robert Walser, 28; Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling, who will win next year's Nobel Prize for literature; The Broken Commandment (Hakai) by Japanese novelist Shimazaki Toson (Shimazaki Haruki), 34, whose autobiographical work breaks his father's commandment not to reveal that he and his family are members of Japan's outcaste burakumin group (see human rights, 1871); With Grass for Pillow (Kusamakura) and The Young Master (Botchan) by Natsume Sōseki, who makes use of his experience as a schoolteacher in the 1890s; The Four Million (stories) by O. Henry, who gains renown for "The Furnished Room" and "The Gift of the Magi"; White Fang by Jack London.

Poetry: Poems by English poet Siegfried Sassoon, 20; "The Highwayman" by English poet Alfred Noyes, 26: "The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,/ The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,/ The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,/ And the highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door"; Portage de midi by French poet Paul Claudel, 38; La Multiple Splendeur by Emile Verhaeren.

Poet Paul Laurence Dunbar dies at his native Dayton, Ohio, February 9 at age 33.

Juvenile: The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher and The Story of Miss Moppet by Beatrix Potter; The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit; The Fortunes of Philippa by English author Angela Brazil, 37.