Richard West
Two of the books I most enjoyed this year were paperback reprints of classic works: Elephant Bill by Lt Col J. H. Williams, first published in 1950, and An English Lady in the Rocky Mountains, first published in 1875. The first of these is an antidote to the notion, put forward by Orwell, that British rule in Burma was just grim and snobbish exploitation. The second shows that life in the Wild West was much as presented by John Ford and the classic movies. Why does not some enterprising publisher com- mission an English lady today to go back to the Rockies? Katharine Whitehorn, for ex- ample. Of new books, I enjoyed enormous- ly James Fox's White Mischief (Cape) con- cerning the sexual life of Lord Errol and those suspected of murdering him.
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