... Mrs. Beeton and Ilcr Husband Champion Road Paper Orchid Elizabeth Bewen's TOWERING misconceptions on the subject of Mrs. Beeton have, for years now, waited to be cleared up. A Sybilline figure in bombazine, age round the fifty-mark, casting eggs by the dozen into the mixing-bowl, pound ing poundable substances with remorseless fury, daring the bride to err, the cook to falter, or the hostess ...

... 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 ...

... OUR BOOKSHELF OUR REVIEWER'S CHOICE Rupert Croft-Cooke ATTIC AND AREA. By F ranees ca Marion. (Hamish Hamilton 10s. 6 d.) TWO LOVELY BEASTS. By Liam O'Flaherty. Gollancz 9s. 6 d.) THE VICTIM. By Saul Bellow. (Lehmann 9s. 6 d.) PAY-OFF IN CALCUTTA. By Richard Collier. (Pilot Press 8s. 6 d.) ATTIC AND AREA. Now and again among the highly-coloured ranks of new novels, the persistent reviewer ...

... written for a lady (Garrick) is another odd play by Leo Marks, who wrote The Girl Who Couldn't Quite. Odd because the author cannot at present harness his undeniable gift for dialogue to a plausible plot. Clifford Molbson and Margaretta Scott do their best to aid him here. the pilgrim's progress (Covent Garden). Hugh Ross Williamson's effort to get Bunyan's great allegory upon the stage ...

... WITH a direct simplicity of purpose not as a rule the characteristic of this form of literature, the synopsis of The Naked City tells us exactly what we need to know about the film in its opening paragraph. Against the authentic background, it says, of more than a hundred famous New York City landmarks, Homicide Bureau detectives Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and James Halloran (Don ...

... The Glass Menagerie Haym arket) Anthony Cook man with Tom Titt REMEMBERING Mama has be come a national pastime in America. She is an or dinary woman, absurd in some ways but devoted, not always easy to live with but not to be men tioned in after years without a catch in the throat. It is a theme which, in Bacon's phrase, should come home to the business and bosoms of men everywhere, but for ...

... . By Betty de Sherbinin. (bampson Low as. od.) A resolute attempt to depict life in the city of Buenos Aires, where, as the author says Man was conscious of women. Women were uneasy. ...

... Elizabeth Bcwetis MR. R. C. ROBERTSON-GLASGOW'S auto biography, 46 Not Out (Hollis and Carter; 10s. 6d.), is the sort of thing which, he says, should be done in the flower of life, before age has brought either the cynicism which smiles so irritatingly on all human endeavour or the complacency which sits back and awaits the opening of the golden gates. True. May one add, there are two ...

... (bfr Sit Down a Minute, Adrian Comedy Anthony Cookman with THIS is not a bad example of the genteel farce now much in fashion. It is as clean as a whistle, with as few notes. Plautus and Shakespeare, those shameless revellers in the fun of mistaken identity and stage hullaballoo, might have wondered what it was all about. Comic the mistakes, no doubt, but how lightly comic the penalties ...

... tf| CtJUc fur s&mEsm _ V These little parkins are very popular. PARKINS Ingredients i lb. oatmeal (medium or fine); 1 oz. lard; 1 oz. sugar; 1 teaspoon- ful bicarbonate soda teaspoonful ginger; 4 oz. golden syrup; a few nuts; pinch of salt. Sift together flour, salt, oatmeal and soda and mix well. Melt lard and work it in and add enough syrup to form a stiff paste. Put dessertspoonfuls in ...

... THE ROAD TO HEAVEN.-- A Swedish miracle play with a touch of Green Pastures, showing how a man presumes to demand justice of God, and is very nearly claimed by Satan. Grave and beautiful film-making and unusually sound theology. le silence est d'or. The film that marks the return of Rene Clair and Maurice Chevalier to their native cinema is frankly a disappoint ment. A patchy little piece ...

... . By Dorothy Clewes. (Harrap 8s. 6d.) Bucolic romance, lush and creamy with nice sentiments. Another of these charming old general practitioners. 2L ...