FAMOUS LOVE LETTERS Edited by Marjorie Bowen
The title of this anthology (Herbert Jenkins, 15s.) is not perfectly expressive of the contents. Most of the writers of " famous love-letters " seem to be adequately represented (and also neatly
labelled, partitioned off and biographic- ally disposed of by the editor), but there are other things as well. Miss Bowen may have attempted to turn a straight- forward feast of sentiment into a sometimes ironic commentary on the elusive passion; or she may not have. At any rate, dispersed amongst the gold we have a considerable body of correspondence which fails to suit a single aspect of the complex mood appealed to by the title. There are letters of Henry VII which, unless irony of the heaviest sort is meant, have no place in this booL Some of the Nelson letters, too, are more the thinking aloud of a harassed navigator in a hurry to catch a breeze than expressions of
solicitude. The book might with better justice have been called " Letters of Famous Lovers." But once that criticism is made there is little more to be said ; in an anthology the sins of omission are the important ones, and of these there are few. So many of the finest things are here, both of our own country and of France.
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