Other Rec ent Books
SCO'TLAND. By G. S. Fraser and Edwin Smith. (Thames and Hudson, 42s.) PUBLISHERS, whether of newspapers, maga- zines or hard-cover books, have long recow nised that the British Commonwealth and Empire provides an insatiable market for material about Scotland. A calendar of Views of the Glens will turn an enfeebled sales curve upwards; From the Lone Shieling, Of the Misty Island and Mountains Divide Us (lavishly illustrated) are good to sell 30,000 apiece; and Selected Poems of Robert Burns, bound in tartan, with a frontispiece of Abbots- ford or Flodden Field (why not?), will com- plete a fabulous success in the prairies, the kopjes and the rubber plantations.
Messrs. Thames and Hudson, or perhaps Mr. Fraser or Mr. Smith, have conceived a high-level version of this material, a book in which text and pictures should be done intelli- gently, a version at once de luxe and dry-eyed. Mr. Fraser contributes a long essay as an introduction to Mr. Smith's photographs. Comprehensive and yet concise, best where it is most personal. least good when most 'official,' it is, taken all round, an admirable job. Mr. Smith's photographs are businesslike and well chosen rather than imaginative, but on the other hand there is no nonsense about them, and they do give a very good idea of what Scotland looks like. They are not quite so well distributed as they might be; too many from Fife, for example, . and none from Lanarkshire.
The criticisms are not major. This is a handsomely produced book which handsomely achieves its object.
3. D. SCOTT
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