... EVERYONE who read and enjoyed Sir Patrick Hast ings' autobiography, and a great many people appear to have done so, will welcome CASES IN COURT (Heinemann. 15s.), in which this great advocate reviews twenty- one of his most famous cases, ranging from the notorious trial of Bob Sievier to the Laski case. Sir Patrick Hastings calls these reminiscences, and he sets them down, each from the ...

... 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 ...

... THE CINEMA REVIEWS By C. A. Lejeune THE FORSYTE SAGA. It is only fair to the author, the customers, and the people who made The Forsyte Saga to explain at once that the film is based on the first story in Galsworthy's family chronicle. The Man of Property, and makes hardly any attempt to stray outside its limits. That is to say, it is about Irene's marriage to Soames, whom she finds she ...

... Cbt tfc- Tlik Philadelphia Story (l>ii-lievs) Aiithony (ookniiiii THE late Philip Barry was the American playwright who worked sometimes with a soulful left hand and sometimes with a cynical right. It depended on whether the Maeterlinck-Pirandello or the Somerset Maugham mood was uppermost. What crept down the left-hand sleeve was drama like The Hotel Universe and Here Come The Clowns. It ...

... Cbt 1&5- itiAj xZ- lloiiavonf lire* (Vamlerillr) A ii ...

... Good Kitia wenceslaus by Alan Melville MUCH though we regret having to strike an uncharitable note during the festive season, we are forced to put on record at the very start of this article that was, in actual fact, not a Good King at all. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was a thoroughly Bad King-- crotchety, vacillating and downright meddlesome. We have gone into the whole business ...

... by Rupert Croft-Cooke THIS year's crop of children's books is a particularly good one. The intelligence of even the youngest is not insulted by baby-talk and the squeaks of teeny- weeny animals, and the fairy stories are about fairies, princesses, and so on. and not about whimsy elves off the mushrooms of suburban front gardens. In other words, there are Christmas presents to be found among ...

... THE THEATRE LET'S MAKE AN OPERA J. C. Trewin Between ourselves, I have long known the I am a superb, if rather unorthodox, singer- a baritone with acute tenor spasms an certain remarkably powerful notes still identified. Unhappily, until Benjamin Britten, Eric Crozier an Norman del Mar came along, no one but myself had any re idea of my powers. However, having just had a night of glo at the ...

... GJb tfc- -/TlcaXT Anthony Coohmttn IT has been a year of many poor new plays and much fine acting-- of so much fine acting, indeed, that a backward glance would merely confirm the futility of compar ing different kinds of fineness, did it not happen to reveal one performance which can justly be said to stand on a different and a higher plane than any other-- Sir Laurence Olivier's Richard ...

... Elizabeth Bo wen CHRISTMAS-- bless it! At this high sociable season, put people first; let books take the second place. All the same, one does lay in books for these days of holiday, as one lays in all other kinds of good fare. Books for your home at Christmas should, I 'm sure, in their own way chime in with the mood. Avoid, at Christmas, the book that does not offer something for all. Seek ...

... Elizabeth Botven JOHN P. MARQUAND is among present-day- America's foremost novelists; and from among those, probably the one nearest to the British comprehension and the British heart. It is true that Sinclair Lewis did much to make known to us the American scene. But inevitably the Middle West is further-- psychologically, I suppose, because geogra phically-- from our comprehension than are ...

... Elizabeth Boweti INCLINATIONS, by Edward Sackville-West (Seeker and Warburg; 12s. 6d.), is a collection of critical essays. That might mean almost anything: criticism is, if one may so use the expression, rife. With æsthetic criticism (the class into which this book falls) we do, of course, narrow down a little. But it is still possible to approach the chosen subject, or subjects, from any ...