... and Other Books Briefly Reviewed In the midst of her life-and-death struggle, Europe had no time to note, save in passing, the dire toll of conflict. Scarcely a day went by without some noble building in some part of Europe disappearing in a cloud of dust and rubble. We all knew full well that our rich architectural heritage was suffering a grievous, irreparable blow, but now come the years of ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF Rupert Croft-Cooke REVIEWED ON THIS PAGE. CREATURES OF CIRCUMSTANCE. By W. Somerset Maugham. (Heinemann 10s. 6 d.) MEN OF TASTE. By Martin S. Briggs. (Bats ford 15s.) RETURN TO NIGHT. By Mary Renault. (Longmans, Green 10s. 6 d.) THE DEADLY PERCHERON. By John Franklin Bardin. Gollancz 8s. 6 d.) CREATURES OF CIRCUMSTANCE. From Mr. Somerset Maugham's new book of short stories ...

... BRITISH ADVENTURE An Omnibus That Misfires, and Other Reviews in Brief In the happy and glorious years of the nineteenth century, the era of British expansionism, any adventure book was sure of a welcome; few cared to question the motives under lying the adventurer's quest. To-day we still honour the names of adventurers, our soldiers and sailors of fortune, our mountaineers and explorers, but ...

... IT is said that in the official Lenin Museum in Moscow, which is supposed to contain the authorised version of the history of the Russian Revo lution, there is not so much as a reference to the name of Leon Trotsky, let alone a picture, or even a group photograph. in which he figures. Such are the lengths to which Joseph Stalin has gone in eliminating Trotsky's possible influence inside the ...

... BERTRAM MILLS In full spangled glory Bertram Mills's Circus has opened once again. The Sylvans. two men and a woman with horses, whose tricks are original and cleverly carried out. give the first act. Then come the Tovarich Troupe, a brilliant company of who twist and turn and ?ti each other with amaz- 'Mity and beauty of form and line. Peggy Holt presents her Symphony in Grey, an equine ...

... THE WELL- DIGGER'S DAUGHTER. THE Well-digger's Daughter, written, pro duced and directed by Marcel Pagnol, with which the Rialto, Coventry Street, followed the phenomenal Les Enfants du Paradis, is very different from its predecessor but none the less notable. Marcel Pagnol, son of Provence, steeped in France's own deep South, has an uncanny knack of putting on the screen the essential ...

... English Popular and Traditional Art Peabody's Mermaid Dark Interlude Cats Don't Need Coffins ENGLISH POPULAR AND TRADITIONAL ART is the somewhat top-heavy, even for bidding title of a delightful book-- which is a recent addition to the Britain in Pictures Series (Collins; 5s. od.). The authors, Margaret Lambert and Enid Marx, define popular art as that which ordinary people create for ...

... with UNDISMAYED by the short run of Big Ben, C. B. Cochran is busy on his plans for the A. P. Herbert-Vivian Ellis operetta Bless the Bride, due at the Adelphi in April, with a possible pre liminary week in Manchester. His recent visit to Paris with composer Ellis in search of a French leading man was successful, though C. B. cautiously refrains from disclosing his name. All that he would say ...

... : Reviewed by Trevor c >_Allen WARDROOM stories, at their best, take a lot of beating-- I've just read one about a flag officer at Gib. who used to row himself round the fleet in his skiff for daily exercise. One morning he rowed right inside the boiler-room of a badly holed destroyer, and was examin ing the damage in the gloom when a fat leading stoker shouted from the gallery above: Ere, ...

... (tfc Off the Record (Apollo) A FARCICAL comedy by Ian Hay and Stephen King-Hall --could any other conceivable theatrical announcement unrelated to the Christmas stage be quite so disarming? The same old thing murmurs the professional critic, to which admission of jaded age and a craving for Switzerland the playgoer, his face lighting up, replies I hope so. A very natural hope, alter all, ...

... The Traveller's Eye The Angelic Avengers The Dark Wood The Horizontal Man ELIZABETH BOWER'S THE TRAVELLER'S EVE, by Dorothy Carrington (Pilot Press; 18s.), appro priately greets our return to foreign travel-- that most civilised, and civilising, of pleasures. This book is not so much an anthology as a review of the great expanse of English travel literature: the compiling of an anthology ...

... IT is just over a year ago since the complete recordings of The Messiah were issued, and now in commemoration of the centenary of the death of Mendelssohn the first complete recording of his Elijah has been made. The work was given its first per formance at the Birmingham Musical Festival in 1846, when it was conducted by the composer. On the present recording we have Isobel Baillie, Gladys ...