17 NOVEMBER 1928, Page 30

More Books of the Week (Continued from page 738.) Mr.

Haldane Macfall, in Aubrey Beardsley, the Man and his Work (The Bodley Head,. 15s.), tells us, in a simple and readable way, of the life and death of Aubrey Eeardsley, The book is not so much a criticism of his art as of his life. And what a life ! Every month has as much.. in it, of hopes and fears and complete changes of outlook, as is contained in a year of most men's lives. At sixteen he is still writing what Mr. Macfall calls his Puerilia, at twenty-five he is recanting all his " Impublishable " works and asking his friend to destroy them, as he lies on his death-bed. Mr. Macfall knew Beardsley personally, and would seem to have been very fond of him. His book, if it makes no startling revelations, is a sympathetic account of one of the strangest characters, and one of the most meteoric careers, that are to be found in the history of art. The Bodley Head are to be congratulated on the excellence of their production, and the illustrations, taken from Beardsley's own work, make the book well worth getting.

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