Noel Malcolm
I have particularly enjoyed reading John Paget's Hungary and Transylvania (2 vols, John Murray, 1839) even though I had to go to a library to do so. (Reprint pub- lishers, please note.) Paget was an enter- prising man, a doctor, social reformer, utilitarian and Unitarian, who married a Hungarian baroness and went to manage
her estates in Transylvania. His book is full of social observation and moral reflection, of a very engaging kind. Surprisingly, he did not share his in-laws' prejudices against ethnic Roumanians: 'When I hear the Roumanian peasant accused of want of gratitude', he wrote rather drily, 'I am apt to lose patience, for he has had so very little opportunity of indulging that feeling.' Of books published this year, the one I treasure is A Ravel Reader edited by Arbie Orenstein (Columbia University Press, $33.50): a colossally comprehensive collec- tion of Ravel's correspondence, newspaper articles and interviews, with omnium- gatherum appendices listing such things as his entire personal record collection. Pur- ists may think they should buy the French edition of this book, to get the texts in the original; but Ravel's most important lec- ture on music (given in Texas) survives only in an English version. Besides, the French edition is an overgrown glued- together paperback, costing the same, whereas this is a beautifully produced hardback which will last for centuries.
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