"MY JAPANESE WIFE."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—My attention has been drawn to an able and apprecia- tive review of my new novel, " My Japanese Wife," in the Spectator of October 5th. From the general tone of it I gather that your reviewer would be unwilling to do the author the slightest injustice. To refute a suggestion of plagiarism is at best a thankless task ; but, in my opinion, it should always be attempted, and that with as little delay as possible. The analogy which your reviewer appears to have discovered between my little book and that of M. Pierre Loti, can be nothing save a literary coincidence; aided, doubtless, by the accident (I am presuming your reviewer's hypothesis to be correct) that M. Loti's book with mine aims at being an actual transcript of certain phases of Japanese life and character. Although acquainted—through a review of some years back, to which, however, I have not been able to refer—with the general outline of " Madame Chrysantheme," I have not read the book in question. When discussing my (then just completed) novel with a literary friend some months ago, he warned me that the ground had been "covered by a French writer of fiction ; " but as the manuscript was then completed, I decided to risk any similarity which might arise or exist through two writers of even different nationalities treating a somewhat similar subject. Mr. Douglas Sladen's recent novel, " A Japanese Marriage," has for the same reason been unread by me ; though in the event of any such suggestion being made with
reference to it, my publishers would be able to deal with the matter even more satisfactorily than I could, as they accepted my novel for publication some months before Mr Sladen's was announced. Your reviewer's wish that another novel of mine might soon appear will be, I am happy to say, shortly gratified. In conclusion, I may perhaps be permitted to add that an oversight of the publisher's or printer's, by which the dedication" To the real itousme, with my Love," was omitted, might possibly, had it not occurred, have relieved my kindly reviewer of the responsibility incurred by his suggestion.—I am, Sir, Le., Bournemouth, W., October .5th. OLIVE HOLLAND.
[If Mr. Holland will now read "Madame Chrysantheme," he will see how remarkable and minute are the coincidences which led our reviewer to infer that he had not written without knowledge of his French predecessor's work.—En. Spectator.]
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