... THERE is a good deal of the suavity of Somerset Maugham's writing in Mr. Martin Boyd's new novel, SUCH PLEASURE (Cresset Press. Ios. 6d.), but there is also the author's own quality of story-telling and the evocative power by which he suc ceeds in picturing a room or a countryside or just a woman's dress. And better than all these. he is able to e voice the teeling ot a period. I enjoyed this ...

... PICASSO Through the Eyes of His Friend Jaime Sabartes Pablo Ruiz Picasso, born at Malaga in 1881, the son of Basque parents, ranks with Cézanne as a supreme innovator. He has been an originator and leader of most of the new departures in painting since 1910. His art has passed through many phases. There are the lovely, if senti mental, paintings of his Blue Period of 1901-04; the Rose period ...

... MISS EVELYN HARDY calls THE CONJURED SPIRIT SWIFT (Hogarth Press. 15s.) A Study in the Relationship of Swift, Stella and Vanessa. The publishers point out that what they call the enigma of Swift's relationships has been done often, but mostly by men. Of the I handful of ladies who have tackled this difficult essay in pnocn f inn (on/1 4-Viorr lauiuai o^/uuuiauuu \aiiu muj include Lady ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ...

... LOWLAND LAIRDS The Scottish Scene Through Three Centuries With his lives of William Wallace and Alexander III, James Fergusson, biographer and historian, acquitted himself well in a conventional manner, but infinitely more revealing in its portrayal of Scottish life, more charged with authentic atmosphere, is his series of essays on LOWLAND LAIRDS (Faber and Faber. 16s.). Mr. Fergusson, who ...

... THE Pre-Raphaelites are having a renascence of popularity, at least in so far as literary discussions of their work are concerned, and Professor Oswald Doughty's important new volume on Dante Gabriel Rossetti is yet another step in the re discovery of that remarkable and vital group of poets and painters. A Victorian Romantic I (Frederick Muller. 25s.) is literally a ponderous volume in its ...

... ALL life is roads, writes Miss Madge Jenison, for all life is movement. Animals began it; then primi tive man, then caravans, armies, ships. With them went fabulous wares; rubies and gold for the eyes' delight, bronze for the helmet, tools for the hand, cedar timbers to build the house-- rainbow silks of Samarkand. Ahead of each went the idea, the true roadmaker. Roads (W. H. Allen. 12s. 6d ...

... MOST readers of fiction in this country are inclined to like a good story-- or rattling good tale-- about a ship, and this week it is a novel of Mr. Andrew Geer's that fills the bill. In fact, THE SEA CHASE (Collins, 10s. 6d.) is so exciting and so well told that I could only regret that the author had chosen to write about a German tramp steamer with a German captain as courageous as he was ...

... A NEW SLANT UPON OUR ISLAND STORY Douglas Jerrold's Introduction to History There are many scholars who feel that we have long laboured in this land under a misconception as to the way in which history should be written. In fact, there appear to have been two great misconceptions. The first lies surely in the exhibitionistic, Whiggish, and not always truthful Macaulay and Green technique. The ...

... THE autobiography of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, TRIAL AND ERROR (Hamish Hamil ton. 2is.), bears upon its jacket the proud words, First Presi dent of Israel. The last page in the book is dated August 1948. Since then, the State of Israel has been recognised by the Great Powers, and been admitted to the United Nations. In all history few men have accomplished as much, in a lifetime, as the First ...

... MALTA'S ATTACKING ROLE Sir Hugh Lloyd's Enthralling Narrative sketches, penned mostly between 1901 and 1907. They are published under the title SHRINES AND CITIES OF FRANCE AND ITALY (Longmans, Green and Co. 9s. 6d.), and accompanied by a series of modest but neat little pencil drawings, mostly concerned with archi tectural detail which caught the traveller's interest. In France Miss Underhill ...