... PHON ETICAL FANCIES A Glasgow Publisher Has Ambitious Plans for the English Language From Scotland comes another villainous attack upon the English language, or, alternatively, another noble attempt to deal with the barbarities of our spelling. It all depends how you feel about phonetics. Mr. Peter D. Ridge- Beedle, a Glasgow publisher, has decided that the time has come to modify the English ...

... DIM LIGHTS AND SOFT MUSIC The Virtuosity of Friedrich Anton Mesmer To have lived in Paris in 1778, the year that Jean-Jacques Rousseau died and which heralded the rise of Robes pierre, was exciting enough, but to add to the ferment in the capital, the Austrian doctor Friedrich Anton Mesmer arrived upon the scene with a new force to cure the ills of men, and, incidentally, to excite the ...

... ONE would expect Field- Marshal Lord Mont gomery's writing to be crisp, factual and objective, and that, to an admirable degree, is exactly what it is in EL ALAMEIN TO THE RIVER SANGRO (Hutchinson. :5s.), his own account of the activities of the Eighth Army, during the nprinH whpn T rnmmanHpH +hp Army 13 August 1942 to 31 December 1943. If you are looking for any elements of showman ship in ...

... THE NAVY THROUGH THE AGES An Erudite Survey of Our Senior Service Britain's sea power laid the foundations of her Empire and it has saved Britain from every tyrant who has threatened the island from the days of Philip of Spain to those of Adolf Hitler; but the vast territorial gains of the acquisitive past, and the great battles which ensured our survival, only engage incidentally the ...

... MISS MARY MITCHELL'S new novel is a long, long step away from A Warning to Wantons; a step towards the sober, revealing light of the everyday. There is little room for gaiety in the theme the writer has chosen, and the emphasis is decisively on facts rather than fancies. Neverthe less, THE PILGRIMAGE OF MRS. DESTINN (Methuen. 9s. 6d.) is very far from being a dull book. It may not have the ...

... IN that distant Elizabethan world thronged by shadowy figures bearing great names, Christopher Marlowe is the radiant one, 'the Muses' darling' in a contemporary's praise; and it is those words that Mr. Charles Norman has chosen for the title of his charm ing and erudite biography. The Muses' Darling (Falcon Press. 12s. 6d.) is a valuable study, not only because it traces the poet's life in ...

... When John Drinkwater wrote A Man's House he took the climax of the New Testament story and, for two inspired acts, showed the impact of those events upon a middle-class household in Jerusalem. Employing this same method, but without Drinkwater's skill or discernment, C. M. Franzero has written THE MEMOIRS OF PON TIUS PILATE (Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d.), and here again the climax is, of course, ...

... EVER since the inception of the Fabian Society, the Labour movement has not lacked intellectuals, and throughout its growth has been nourished and sustained by many skilled dialecticians who could command a reading public. Even more valuable has been the type of scholar not lacking in the common touch who could put the views of the comrades over to the community. Mr. Francis Williams was for ...

... LEAR, KING OF NONSENSE A New Collection of the Celebrated Rhymes, and Other Books Briefly Reviewed The cry of the Nupiter Piffkin, the call of the Biscuit Buffalo, the Fimble Fowl with a corkscrew leg (see Verse IV of the Quangle Wangle's Hat), the Pobble with no toes, the AkancT of Swat (Did he sleep on a mattress, a bed or a cot?), not forgetting, of course, the Jumblies and the Yonghy ...

... WHEN bad men combine, the good men asso ciate, wrote Burke, and that might be taken as the motif of THE WEST AT BAY (Allen and Unwin. 12s. 6d.), a survey of our present situation by that brilliant young economist, Miss Barbara Ward. Starting with the premise that no corner of the world except perhaps Ancient Greece has contributed as much as Western Europe to the development and enrichment ...

... SIMON BOLIVAR, the great liberator, the hero of South American independence, was born in Venezuela in 1783, the son of rich parents of noble family. He died forty-seven years later, having spent nine- tenths of his personal fortune in the service of his country and, although he had for a long time unlimited control over the revenues of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, without a penny of public ...

... IN PRAISE OF BATSFORD A Publishing House and Its Recording of the English Scene The English character, we flatter ourselves, is not without complexity, and the English spirit is not to be defined in a few words. We are best understood, perhaps, by the sights and scenes of town and countryside, the everyday life of England past and present, and by our rich architectural heritage. These things ...