... wwv SPODE ware is not only exquisitely decorative: sometimes it is i graphically scenic; its pictures may even tell a story and show vivid S hunting episodes in many lands. The 185 illustrations to Sydney B. c S Williams's Antique Blue and White Spode (Batsford, £2 2s.) are J> not only of the finished masterpieces but in many cases of the original s S engravings side by side, and this ...

... : Reviewed by Trevor c \Allen AFTER seventeen years' happy married life, five cables in one day from Your Charles (Graves) to tell her that he adores her more than ever Yes, Jane Gordon is a lucky woman. But I'm not sure that she deserves such luck. For one thing, early in their romance she gave him mumps. For another, she has seen him lose quite a lot of money at snakes-and- ladders; ...

... Cbt tfc Antlion; l ook man The (ircrn Bar Tree'* (Play house) MORDAUNT SHAIRP'S play, as the audiences of 1933 recognized with a little shock of surprise, dealt with one kind of degeneracy. In revival, acted with a different emphasis and shorn of at least one crucial line, it deals with another kind of degeneracy. It is not quite such a good play. For in this year of grace we must take Mr. ...

... Job For Mi*. Davis Seun JFivt ing Book Jtofioivs EVERY once in a while a book arrives upon one's desk which clearly says that it is henceforth a friend and companion for life. Years will pass and their passing will not dim its virtue or value. It will sit plumply in the bookcase, keeping a cosy eye on one's comings and goings and the-- as it were-- passing trade of other and lesser books. ...

... MISS A. L. BARKER is a relatively new and a defi nitely talented author, as the recent winning of the Somerset Maugham Award would prove. After one book of short stories, she has now written her first novel, Apology FOR A HERO (Hogarth Press, 10s. 6d.), and it is well worth noting. In style, mere is still something too conscious about A I ieo Rorl-ar'e u'rifinrr it- to XIX loo I'll 1IYV-1 O 11 ...

... . By Alfred Hayes. Gollancz 9s.) THIS also consists of a number of stories welded together to make a novel, but unlike those of The Winnowing Years they are happening at the same time as well as in the same place, which in this case is Rome. But here, too, there is a unity about the book, an effect of completeness, which saves it from the disjoin tedness which might have been inherent in its ...

... Cbt Tfe ttU*Juu .Aiilliouv fookiiian Sauce Pifjnaiil** aiiiliriilije) THERE is nothing more restful than a swiftly flowing display of energy. This revue is as restful to watch as swallows in foraging flight between roof eave and pond on an evening when nature is showing a nice taste in colour arrangement. Those in move ment are performing prodigies of work, but they have the good grace not ...

... . By N. Brysson Morrison. by Rupert Croft- Cooke The Hogarth Press 9s. 6 d.) MISS BRYSSON MORRISON makes no concession to dodu- larity either in the title or in the stated theme of her book. Winnowing. in the former, has the most tiresome associations, for me at any rate, and should be put on the index of words to be avoided in titles, like warp and woof, glean and harvest, bond and bounty, ...

... I by Cyril Butcher v J UP to the other day, the Cup Final had always been a matter of supreme unconcern of ours, and an event with which we had long made up our mind never to have anything to do. Having been firmly brought up in the Rugger tradition, we could only view the intense public interest it arouses every year with pained surprise, and make an effort, on that day, to put as great a ...

... THE GREEN BAY TREE The Playhouse) J. C. Trewin I REMEMBER with a queer clarity a spring night at the St. Martin's Theatre in 1933. Frank Vosper as Mr. Dulcimer, ruthless hedonist, crossed the stage with a resolute but silken tread, a great cat, soft and silvery, purring about the elegant Mayfair room. Catherine Lacey, as the girl vet who became Dulcimer's implacable enemy, was like a sudden ...

... THE CINEMA ■4. REVIEWS by C. A. LEJEUNE RETOUR A LA VIE. France, which gave us one of the first great omnibus films in Un Carnet de Bal, comes back to the job again with Retour à la Vie. In that case the tone was nostalgic: in this, the note is grim. The film presents the stories of five prisoners of war, four men and one woman, who are welcomed with expressions of delight and pity on their ...

... . By Christopher La Farge. (Macmillan 10s. 6 d.) THERE is a general preface to this collectio; of short stories in which Mr. La Farge claims that he has never tried to write down to anyone. Yet almost all of the difficult stories I have written have been sold to the magazines and frequently to those of large circulation. He goes on to explain that some of his stories deal with matters that ...