Back Words and Fore Words. By Laurence Housman. (Cape. 10s.
6d.)
HOWEVER irrelevant and ungracious it may seem, one cannot help comparing Laurence Housman with his more famous brother. Where Alfred is concise, Laurence is diffuse. The present book is an anthology, chronologically art anged, selected from those works, many of them now out of print or difficult to trace, which the author most wishes to be remembered. After a conservative begin- ning, it reflects the change when " a sharpened interest in political events afflicted me with a social conscience ; I shed a good deal of my romanticism ; also in matters of religious belief my med:e- valism." Here are short selections from what are perhaps Housman's most entertaining plays, Victoria Regina and Palace Scenes, also from The Little Plays of St. Francis and the rather coy and whimsical Prunella. The extracts may be a little too short, to persuade the experimenter to read more Housman, but they will :ertainly remind the converted where to find what they want.
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