... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. THERE is going to be a lot of fuss over the screen treatment of Rachel Field's ALL THIS, AND HEAVEN TOO! (Warner), but per sonally I find myself on the side of the screen-writers. You will remember that Miss Field's long novel fell into two parts. The first dealt with the life of a nineteenth- century French governess in Paris. It described how Henriette Desportes, just ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. THERE was a time when a man of learning could make all knowledge his province. I imagine that in the seventeenth century it was still physically possible for one man to read all the books that had ever been written. How wonderful to know all there was to be known on any subject! Perhaps Francis Bacon was in that happy position. Shakespeare notoriously was not. Ben Jonson, ...

... : i 'Reviewed, by SNoel Jhompson IT is natural, I suppose, that this war becomes a dividing line, a dating line, for histories and autobiographies. How could it be otherwise when the war period itself and anything that may come afterwards must be in a new world from what has gone before. To some people, too, the war has meant the clean break and the enforced change necessary before pen can be ...

... WE may laugh at the days of Queen Victoria; we may listen dubiously to reminiscences from parents and grand parents and think how dreadfully dull those times must have been; we may thank heaven that we escaped being born into that period of black bombazine, and yet there is a fascination in reading about it. Small things mattered more they took the place of those things we worry about so much ...

... By PHILIP PAGE THE whirligig of war has brought back one theatrical fashion of the rather long ago-- a single pantomime for central London. The suburbs then had pantos literally by the dozen; those at the Marlborough, Holloway; the Coronet, Notting Hill; the Ken nington Theatre, and the King's, Hammersmith (and how many, alas! of these outlying theatres have become cinemas, or have vanished ...

... . By L. P. HARTLEY. AS Mr. Epstein sculpts, so does he write, without fear and, I was going to add, without favour; but this would not be entirely true. Disguise the fact as he may, every man is his own favourite, and Mr. Epstein, besides being his own biographer, is also his own apologist, or, it would be fairer to say, the apologist of his art. Ut himself he writes with admirable ...

... . Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes for 1941 has just been published. It is one of the most useful of all books of reference, as it is a handy volume, which occupies a small amount of space 011 the writing-desk, and yet it contains over 30,000 biographies arranged in alphabetical order. Many of these will not be found in other reference books, as Kelly's includes not ...

... Aladdin 99 (Coliseum) By Herbert Farjeon So far as the West End goes, this Christmas pantomime, being the one and only, may safely be described as unrivalled and the best in town. Its greatest virtue is that it preserves continuity. We who were brought up on pantomime and love it because we understand it want it to go on as long as we do. Those who were not brought up on pantomime cannot ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. PRESERVING an old and pleasant cus tom, they gave the film critics and their children a Disney party on Christmas Eve after all. It was rather a different party this year, of course. For one thing, it was mostly the elder children who came. Most of them were schoolboys but a few were at least ten' or twenty years older than their parents. We missed the wide- eyed, wondering ...

... . B> L. P. HARTLEY. DIAGHILEV was not only a great, but a large subject for a biographer, and M. Serge Lifar, making the most of his material, has written a very long book. As he explains in the preface, it is really two books one, a scientific monograph; the other, a personal account. Of the first M. Lifar says-- Diaghilev, the inspiration behind so many artistic developments, the creator ...

... . By C. A. LEJEUNE. THE year has started off with two new films that are well above the average. One is the new Charles Laughton, the other the new Deanna Durbin picture. The Eaughton perform ance, I am inclined to think, is the best thing this consider able artist has ever done. The new Deanna will cause controversy. Some people will miss the naive little girl we used to know. Others will ...

... A CLASSIC, SATIRE, WAR AND TRAVEL Thomas Hardy Illustrated The Crazmess of Thurber How France Fell Was Columbus a Jew Another Book on Ballet -By Vernon Fane PRAISE be to whoever thought of celebrating the centenary of Thomas Hardy's birth by an edition of UNDER THE GREEN WOOD TREE: OR THE MELLSTOCK QUIRE, illus trated by Claire Leighton (Macmillan. 12s. 6d.). I should like to think it was Miss ...