The Life of Benvenuto Cellini written by Himself (Phaidon Press.
10s. 6d.). Though written between 1558 and 1562, this auto- biography—the only autobiography of a Renaissance artist—was not published until 1728 and was first translated into English in 1771. Mr. John Pope-Hennessy, using J. A. Symonds' text, has presented the book with scholarship and understanding and has provided it with appropriate illustrations.
Jonathan Cape is engaged in re-creating the Travellers' Library, whose two hundred titles went out of print during the 1939-45 war. The familiar blue binding has now given place to red ; the device of the figure with the ragged staff has disappeared ; and the price has risen from 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. The first four titles demonstrate an agreeable catholicity of taste. James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is unquestionably a work of genius ; it stands apart from Joyce's later books in the same way as an early Picasso stands apart from a late Picasso (and this perhaps sufficiently explains why I, personally, like it the best of Joyce's books). It is an abrupt switch from Joyce to Mr. Peter Fleming's One's Company, the entertaining and instructive record of " Fu Lei Ming's " (to give him his Chinese name) journey through Russia and China in 1933. The book is admirable in its kind, but it now inevitably has some of the shortcomings of dated history and on its next appearance may need a new introduction or some footnotes. The other new titles in the Travellers' Library are Pauline Smith's book of South African stories The Little Karoo and Edward Thomas's The Pocket Book of Songs and Stories for the Open Air. Thomas's book is full of good things—an " acceptable present," though I sometimes wonder who reads such books. I doubt whether they are much read in the open air ; in fact I believe these roaring drinking songs and amorous ditties usually lie on the chaste bedside tables of maiden aunts.
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