... -By Vernon Fane Sir Philip Gibbs 1 American Tour Ralph Ingersoll Covers All Fronts Miss Emily Hahn's Biography of Three Remarkable Chinese Sisters Donald Cowie's Heartening Record of General Wavell's Campaign Sixteen Stories by Walter de la Mare, and a Book About Bridge THE last ten years have seen the rise to fame, honour, glory and the best-selling lists of the foreign correspondents. Before ...

... WE are told that Mr. Trevor Evans, the author of BEVIN (George Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d.), has secured the wholehearted co-operation of some of Bevin's close asso ciates in the compilation of this book. the amount of co-operation Mr. Trevor Evans received from Mr. Ernest Bevin himself is revealed in the chap ter in which the author describes in detail his visit to the Foreign Secretary on ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE THE LITTLE FOXES.-- I have inveighed of late-- and, I think, with reason-- against blatantly-sadistic plays on the London stage. This epoch of world-horror is not the time to see players pretending to torture each other at 12s. 6d. a stall. One of these productions has just ceased to be after a very short life; another lingers on as a source of laughter in the wrong ...

... Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE THE outstanding event of London's theatrical year so far has been the visit to the New Theatre of the Comédie Française company. This was all too short and, since enormous audiences attended every performance, should certainly be repeated. By that I do not mean that, we were here shown a standard of acting to which our own actors and actresses cannot attain. The ...

... IT would be fairly safe to say that the most popular American alive to-day is, by English standards, General Eisenhower. His own superb war history explains a few of the reasons for that popularity, which also depends on his humanity and the sincerity of his feeling for our own country. hew who heard his Guildhall speech in the summer of 194s, for instance, will forget its warmth or its ...

... THE PLANTAGENETS A New Estimate of a Dark Era in Our History What manner of men were the Plantagenets? No other dynasty has reigned so long over England since the Norman Conquest, and yet somehow they remain shadowy figures, those Kings who wore the sprig of broom, descen dants of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, and the Empress Maud, or else, where Shakespeare turned the floodlights upon them, we ...

... THERE are sales of fine books and first editions almost every day of the week up to the end of the month at Sotheby's. Moreover, the prices have settled at one of the highest points ever reached. These two facts are a pointer to the dis turbed international situation and the inflation at home. Many people have discovered that really fine books drop in price less than stocks and shares, and ...

... Opera and the Ballet: Reviewed by PHILIP PAGE SIR JOHN IN LOVE (Sadler's Wells).-- The first post-war season of grand opera at Covent Garden shows, as I write, no sign of becoming an accomplished fact, though no doubt we shall hear something of the sort there before the summer is over. But opera continues at Sadler's Wells, except on Monday nights, when the second string ballet (and a very ...

... IN his introduction to ENEMY COAST AHEAD (Michael Joseph. 12s. 6d.), Air Chief- Marshal Harris writes: This is a magnificent story, well and simply told by as great a warrior as these Islands ever bred. It is the story of Bomber Com mand, as it was known to Wing Commander Guy Gibson, V.C., D.S.O., D.F.C. He was the man and his portrait shows i him to have been gay, young and good-looking who ...

... ENGLISH children, as well as American children, will now have a new Mouse to add to their collection of friends, where Mickey has reigned alone for so long. The new representative of the race can't be said to compete exactly with the film rodent; he is a character on his own and in a different medium. Mr. E. B. White is probably best known as a member of the brilliant staff of writers ...

... INTO BATTLE WITH THE GRENADIERS The Story of the Regiment in the War Ever since the late Colonel Henderson wrote his life of Stonewall Jackson, military historians have had before them a prime example of the way in which military history can be rendered wholly palatable-- can, indeed, be as enthralling as a well-constructed historical novel. It is good to see others adopting the lively ...

... THERE are some good novels this week and, though none of them is necessarily of great significance, they make a satisfying and notable list. First of all, A QUIET NEIGH BOURHOOD (Heinemann. 8s. 6d.), a book of considerable character in spite of its gently restricted theme. Mrs. Anne Goodwin Winslow writes, if I may use an old-fashioned term, like a lady, with restraint, delicacy and a polite ...