... The Beats: Literary Bohemians in Postwar America, edited by Ann Charters (Gale Research Company, two volumes, $152.00) The price of these books. Volume 16 in Gale's mammoth Directory of Literary Biography project, will probably put them beyond the reach ...

... death at the end of 1948. He was America's favourite archetypal English gentleman, suggesting breeding, authority, good temper and kindness. The acknowledged leader of the British community in Hollywood, be went to America almost penniless after he had turned ...

... Woody Allen, by Diane Jacobs (Robson Books. f6.5) A discursive examination of Woody Allen's work, mainly his films, by one of America's best young critics. Explaining humour with such earnestness, however, seems rather pointless. If you hink Allen funny, you ...

... Shakespeare by example is fun The Winter's Tale; In Performance in England and America 1611-1976, by Dennis Bartholomeusz. Cambridge University Press, £27.50 One of the pleasantest and easiest ways of learning serious things about Shakespeare and his ...

... actually invented it. Then, as the nickleodeon, it became a novelty, strongly akin to the fairground sideshow, which all America flocked to see. Finally, it became both art and entertainment. But along the way it also became a moral threat hence the ...

... on the doom of the Atrides in stylised settings recalling the Japanese stage. In the meantime, he had been very active in America, where he directed the Dramatic Workshop of the School for Social Research, where he counted Marlon Brando and Tony Curtis ...

... overdoes his praise of O'Neill, but for all his shortcomings it is difficult to think of any other contenders for the title of America's greatest playwright. In a sense, the man was his plays and the biographical element is more strongly intertwined with the ...