20 MAY 1916, Page 20

Fifty Years of a Londoner's Life. By H. G. Ribbed.

(Grant Richards. 10s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Hibbert's knowledge of the entertainment world— from the days of Cremorne Gardena to the present variety syndicates and the cinemas—is apparently inexhaustible, and his book is full of genial gossip and anecdote of favourites of the theatre and the music- hall. George Leybourne and Blondin, Nellie Farren and Dan Leno, figure in its pages ; we may read how popular managers such as Augustus Harris, John Hollingshead, and George Edwardes made successes— and sometimes failures ; and in the chapter " Ballots and Ballot Dancers " we are let into the mysteries of the dance.