2 FEBRUARY 1929, Page 32

Mr. Henry Baerlein has written a very bright, discursive biography

in Heine : A Strange Guest (Bles, 12s. 6d.). It is in the new fashion of biography ; part fiction, part fact, and an intolerable deal of private and Mr. Baerlein never quite approaches the level of the est books of the kind. Perhaps there is something wrong in the choice of Heine himself as a subject. It is difficult to invent con- versations for a famous: man of wit. The achievement of Mr. Baerlein is that he has made his biography throughout as light as a scull& ; his failure is that this lightness has so little substance behind it. Perhaps the best parts of the book are the colloquial, free and rather jogtrot translations of Heine's poems.