.Book Notes
A NEw edition of The Letters of lohn Keats, edited by Maurice Buxton .Forman and published by the Oxford University Press coincides with an appeal for funds for the upkeep of the Keats-Shelley Memorial in ,Rorie. TheMemorial comprises both the house in which Keats died in 1821 and the graves of Keats and Shelley in the Protestant Cemetery. Founded in 19o3 by Anglo-American co- operation, the Membrial ago commemorates Byron and Leigh Hunt. In the house, together with an important collection of manuscripts, pictures and relics, there is a library of nearly ro,000 volumes. In spite of the difficulties of keeping the collection safe and intact during the war, within a year of liberation some 15,000 visitors, mostly from the ranks of the Allied forces, had been through the house. But there is now urgent need for fresh endowment. Further particulars may be obtained from the Hon. Secretary, Miss Elsa Forman, 63 Rowan Road, London, W.6.
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The Arrow and The Sword (Faber) written by - Hugh Ross Williamson and with a preface by Canon V. A. Dem= Is sub- titled An Essay in Detection. The arrow is the arrow which killed William Rufus in the New Forest, and the sword is the sword which killed Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. It has been sug- gested that these two crimes were in fact cases of ritual mtirder, that their iource is to be found in a pre-Christian tradition which goes back to the Priest of Nemi and further. Mr. Ross Williamson, examining certain curious features of the two crimes, is less con- cerned with proving., the case as with co-ordinating the evidence which suggests there is a case to be made out.
* * * * - Towards the end of the last century a remnant of the tribe of Cheyenne Indians, three hundred men, women and children, broke out of the established Indian Territory in an apparently hopeless attempt to cover the vast distance to their home in the Black Hills of Wyoming. Ten thousand soldiers were sent to stop them, and the country through which they had to pass was in the process of intensive development. So their chance of success seemed very small. And yet by ruse, by the lore of the wilds and by sheer refusal to give in, a proportion eventually reached their goal. It was an expedition which could only have happened in America, and the story is representative of much in American history. It is told in The Last Frontier by Howard Fast, author of Freedom Road. John Lane The Bodley Head are the publishers. * * A reprint of Mrs. Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton, which is pub- lished in the Chiltern Library, marks the centenary of its original publication in 1847. Lettice Cooper writes an introduction. The Survivors is a collection of short stories written by John Sommerfield when he was serving with the R.A.F. Lehmann are the publishers of both books on June 3o:h.
Though Crockford is first and foremost a book of reference, the prefaces contributed to the annual issues, in which the editor casts an observant eye over the Church and its ministers during the period under review, have come to be valued fol. their own sakes. Crock- ford Prefaces : The Editor Looks Back (Oxford University Press) gathers together the most interesting portions of those prefaces (all by the same anonymous writer) which cover the years 1921-44. It deals with many matters of Church discipline and administration, as well as with points arising out of the editor's correspondence.
The Roosevelt I Knew, which is being published on July 4th by Hammond, is a full-length study of the late President by Frances Perkins, who was not only a close personal friend, but also, as American Secretary of Labour from 1933 to 1945, a close govern- mental associate.
Irregular Adventure, by Christie Lawrence, is another first-hand story of twelve months' sojourn in the Balkans which began in June, 1941, and which took the author through Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria in circumstances of singular discomfort. He met the prin- cipal Serbian guerrilla leaders, including Mihailovitch, and lived and fought by the side of both Communists and Chetniks, eventually becoming himself a leading figure in an independent political and military organisation. As such he claims that he knows not only " both " but " all " sides of the Serbian resistance movement. Faber's publish on July 4th.
R. S. Lambert has written, in For the Time is at Hand (Melrose), the life-story of Henry Wentwor:h Hunt, associate of Holman Hunt and Ruskin, pioneer of world peace and ardent supporter of the movement for creating a natiorial home for Jews in Palestine, in which country he was at one time a member of a Jewish farming community. Forecasting the establishment of U.N.O., he was one of the first advocates of an international order, a world state and a
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