LITERARY NEWS.
The copyright, stereotype plates, and 020,000 back numbers of " Household Words," were sold by auction on Monday, by Mr. Ed- mund Hodgson, under a Chancery decree, for the sum of 35001. The purchaser was Mr. Arthur Smith, acting, it is believed, for Mr. Charles Dickens.
The fifth volume of Irving's " Life of Washington " will probably be amongst the next arrivals from the United States. It was announced' for publication in the first week of this month.
Messrs. Longman and Co. have in preparation an edition of " The Pilgrim's Progress," in foolscap 4to., with numerous illustrations on steel and wood from designs by Mr. Charles Bennett, and with a preface by the Reverend Charles Kingsley.
The commencement of a new serial novel, " Hopes and Fears, or Scenes from the Life of a Spinster," by the author of the " Heir of Re& ely-ffe," is announced for immediate publication by Messrs. Saunders, Otley, and Co.
The libraries of the Royal Society of Literature, the Society of Anti• queries of London, the South Kensington Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the Universal Library of Athens, have been lately presented by Mr. S. Leigh Sotheby with a copy of his "Principle Typographies"; of which, our readers may remember, 216 of the 250 copies printed were last year sold in one morning at ten and nine &milieus per copy; the au- thor reserving the remaining copies for such special purposes as those
named above. Mr. Sotheby had the
tion of forwarding in May last year, a richly bound copy to the Emperor of France, in grateful re- membrance of the fact that his house of business had received the thanks of the Emperor when in England, on the disposal in 1847 of the library formed by the Ring of Holland, the father of the Emperor. That copy, however, had been forwarded direct to the Emperor of France, through M. Duprat, the accredited agent of the private Imperial library, in lieu of its having obtained "rautorsation par rintermecliaire du Miniatre de sa Majeste accredits aupres du Government de sa nation " ; and, conse- quently, it remains in the " Cabinet de l'Empereur" in the Tuileries, "sans aucune suite " until it receives, officially, the formal sanction. On receiving in November information from the "Chef du Cabinet de l'Em- pereur ' to that effect, the author could do no more in his humble posi- tion, than immediately address his Excellency the Ambassador of France, apologizing, and regretting his utter ignorance of the regulations then in force.
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