... THE ANGELIC AVENGERS (Putnam. 10s. 6d.) is definitely an oddity, since in style and plot it has a marked resemblance to the Gothic literature of the past two centuries, and that is a literary manner that is now almost forgotten and almost never practised. The novel is, how ever, much more readable than the term implies, and has great force and even a queer kind of excitement. The publishers ...

... Ctfr tfe- The Anonymous Lover (Duke of York's) MR. VERNON SYLVAINE is my favourite writer of farces that cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called intellectual. His fun is simple and usually it follows the same pattern. Some might say that it is a pattern indistinguishable from that of a dozen other farces by different hands; but I find in Mr. Sylvaine's workmanship an admirable ...

... During the past few weeks I have listened to many records that have little to recom mend them artistically. Orchestrations are too elaborate, singers strain to get their top notes the result, rather like life, is a rough and tumble and to what end Therefore, I am delighted to commend to your notice On Her, My Treasure and To My Beloved from Don Giovanni, sung by Aksel Shidtz. Here is a tenor ...

... (btr rfuL iClxe Ja 1 e (Ah ycli) IT was in one of George du Maurier's cartoons that Lady Georgius Midas re pulsed a street tout offering the synopsis of Dumas's Dam o' Cameleers with the words: We have come to see the acting. We have no desire to understand the play. Fane presents no temptation to moral hypocrisy, but this lady would have known the best way to enjoy it. If the piece means ...

... THE LITERARY LOUNGER. By L. P. HARTLEY. WAR IN VAL D'ORCIA. By Iris Orlgo. THIS is a diary of the war as it affected the owners and tenants of an agricultural estate in Tuscany. It begins in January 1943 with the arrival, at the Marchesa Origo's villa of La Foce, of seven refugee children whose homes in Genoa had been bombed. (Afterwards this number was more than quadrupled.) It closes in ...

... A ELIZABETH BOWEO Young Enthusiasts A Distant Summer States of Grace Death's Old Sweet Song FEW novelists now writing command the art of telling a story more surely than does Elizabeth Jenkins. This is less simple than it appears-- how much less simple you only realise when you consider the twistings and turnings, the blurs, the fogs, the halts, the tedious, mystifications and ill ...

... t U- i i She Wanted A C earn Fr it Door (Apollo) A FARCE of unexpected refinement-- out Mr. Robertson Hare's old admirers need not take fright. Of course it is not upon his character that the farce refines. All that is meant is that the author, Mr. A. R. Whatmore, has let a little effective sentiment into the situations which are sent to try Mr. Hare's churchwardenly soul, and there is less ...

... TWO books by distinguished soldiers, both dealing for the most part with the same subject, both crystal-clear in their soldierly marshalling of facts, have made their appear ance together. One is in some respects a disappointment, and the other is probably the best book so far produced about the Second World War. The disappointment is Field-Marshal Mont gomery's NORMANDY TO THE BALTIC (Hutchin ...

... WHETHER Mrs. Angela Thirkell writes inspired nonsense or acute social com mentaries, I will leave to her more devoted fans to decide. Superficially, one or two things are obvious: that she takes a dim view of the present Govern ment, that Winchester's motto --Manners makyth man-- has a profound appeal to her, and that Breeding will tell is an article of her faith as a novelist. Let us, for ...

... ELIZABETH BBWES'S The Life of Neville Chamberlain A Pin's Fee Orion III. Cooking Quickly THE LIFE OF NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN, by Keith Feiling (Macmillan; 25s.), is a biography which not only deserves but secures, by its own force, the closest attention. It is long-- how can it not be; for it involves, as background and as vital part of the story, the political history of this country from the ...

... . By JOHN RUSSELL NOW that the ingratitude of the public has robbed us of treats as various as Caste and Antony and Cleopatra, it may be imprudent to speak of such novelties as The White Devil, the return of Leonide Massine, the arrival at the Vaudeville of Now Barabbas, and the prospect of once again seeing the Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden. weDster s i ne vvnite JLievii nas Deen ...

... ELIZABETH HOWES S Manservant and Maidservant The Return to the Farm The Farm Theotime Sophy Valentine MANSERVANT AND MAIDSERVANT, by I. Compton Burnett (Gollancz; 8s. 6d.), is far from being a treatise on one topical problem. Like all other Compton Burnett novels, it is set back in time-- but is not, in its interest, period: it offers us an analysis of the master-and-servant ...