20 JUNE 1931, Page 30

* * * * The appearance of the tenth volume,

covering the year 1929, of The Year's Work in _English-Studies, edited for the English Association by F. S. Boas (Oxford University Press, 10s. 6d.), serves to remind us once again of an invaluable reference book which .seems to be not so well known and less widely used than it deserves to be. Professor C. H. Herford, under pressure of other work, had to end before his death a five-years' editorial and contributing connexion. His place was ably occupied by Professor Oliver Elton, and other contributors unchanged from last year. Some four hundred books and an even greater number of articles are noticed, but there is, on the whole, an agreement that though 1929 was prolific in quantity, it produced comparatively few really eminent works. Here is ample testimony, however, to the " fine-comb " industry constantly in progress in every field of English literature.