Hardcover. London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 2nd pr., 1947, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in light tan cloth with red lettering to the spine, 361 pages. Although the life of London runs like a thread through the whole fabric of this book, it is not essentially a book about London. Life in Bloomsbury is but the center of a large circle, the point around which the rest of the book revolves, the origin of a disarming commentary on an infinite variety of topics - on Bloomsbury's squares, on the picturesqueness of London a generation ago, on what is true Cockney, on the differences of English and American humor, on the decay of English wit, on books and authors and publishers and the Press, on the literary lions of the past, on the religion of speed, on the charm of Americans, on how the Victorian age was neither so repressed nor so hidebound as most people today like to believe - and so on, one thing leading to another, like good conversation at a good luncheon overlooking the mellow squares of Bloomsbury. The book is full, too, of good stories and reminiscences, both humorous and pathetic, but there is shrewd comment besides on the deficiencies of contemporary society, not the less effective because the author knows how to soften the blow. Mild soil, sunning to covers, clean copy.
