... BY long odds, THE AMERICANS (Cresset Press, 10s. 6d.) is the most remarkable book of the week. This is a study, revealing and readable, of the characteristics of the people of the United States, and it has been made by Mr. Geoffrey Gorer, a British anthropologist whose serious contribution to this science is only equalled in value by his admirable candour. Mr. Gorer's findings are sometimes ...

... In 1902 Anna of the Five Towns introduced to the world that series of remarkable novels with the Potteries as background which brought fame to the name of Enoch Arnold Bennett. He created an unforgettable picture of life in industrial Staffordshire. Bennett, however, did not allow the artist in him to prevail, and it is for this reason that he may be a puzzle to the new generation, and it is ...

... NOT since the days of Pal grave's Golden Treasury, or the Oxford Book of English Verse, has there been an antho logy in any way comparable with POETRY OF THE ENGLISH- SPEAKING WORLD (Heinemann. 15s.). Its selection is the result of a lifetime of reading and many years of work by Mr. I Richard Aldington, whose own reputation as a poet and distinguished scholar pre pares one in some measure for ...

... WHEN RAFFLES MET BONAPARTE A New Biography of the Founder of Singapore In 1816 Thomas Stamford Raffles, homeward bound from Java, paused for a few brief hours at the island of St. Helena, and there, in meeting Napoleon, he satisfied a deep and long-felt desire. What Raffles, the brilliant but not always appreciated servant of the East India Company, for ever in danger of being caught in the ...

... JUST 100 years ago, the com poser, Mendelssohn, died. He was only thirty-eight, very happily married, and had said of himself that My work is a supreme pleasure. At the age of twelve he had already shown himself a fine musician, had composed a certain amount and had written down his compositions in a clear and mature hand. Mendelssohn was a happy man; it was not until after his death that he ...

... THE Brigadier Gerard of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories was a fantastic and yet credible creature, slightly larger than life-size, and the hero of a thousand exploits, related and unrelated, or so we used to feel in the young and happy days when we were reading about him. It is I possible, we now hear, that this magnificent and flamboyant creature had a prototype in real life, and that he was ...

... THE ARMOUR OF ALLURE How 14 The Perfect Lady Dressed in Victorian Days Camisoles garnished with whalebone, crescentic pads stuffed with horsehair (to throw the skirt well out over the hips) and metal busks were just a few of the dreadful ideas our Victorian ancestors perpetrated in the name of fashion. That was how we looked upon it in the '20's and '30's of this new, enlightened age; and now, ...

... THE memoir that his daughter has written about the great journalist, J. L. GARVIN (Heinemann. 12s. 6d.). is illuminating and tender. Miss Katharine Garvin has concen trated on the personal side of his life, and left his services to journalism and to the politi cal scene for another hand to delineate. tier dook nas Deen written essentially from her own memories of him as the father of young ...

... BERNARD MILES SURVEYS THE BRITISH THEATRE An Appeal for Cheaper Seats and Less Commercialism Bernard Miles has won a foremost place in British films, and in Great Expectations and Fame is the Spur he revealed himself to tens of thousands as a first-class character actor. Despite these screen successes, however, Mr. Miles is really a man of the theatre; we must make no mistake about that. ...

... WHEN a man has a brilliant legal reputation, great wit and an inexplicable modesty, it is likely that the story of his life will be worth telling, and if by himself, then well told. THE AUTO BIOGRAPHY OF SIR PATRICK HASTINGS (Heinemann. 15s.) therefore is a very successful undertaking and a book that is thoroughly satisfying to read. Sir Patrick's device is that On est comme on est, a ...

... THIS week's most attractive and most rewarding book is also one of its briefest: FIN DE SIÈCLE (Allan Wingate. 10s. 6d.). It is a thin and elegant little book, as thin and elegant as the Aubrey Beardsley ladies who decorate its wrap per, and it is a selection of nineteenth-century literature and art, chosen by Mr. Nevile Wallis. Mr. Holbrook Jackson has contributed A Note on the Period, and ...

... DEAN INGE may now be a gentleman of advanced years, but in his new collection of essays, THE END OF AN AGE (Putnam, 10s. 6d.), he writes with all the lucidity and force of a man and a thinker in the prime of his life. Of these seven essays, the Dean writes that the titles of the chapters mav sound more despondent than the text, a phrase which recalls the days when he was known as the gloomy ...