4 JANUARY 1930, Page 27

A hundred years ago there was no need to be

puzzled in decid- ing on a Christmas or New Year present. Keepsakes and Remem- brancers and Friendship's Offerings appeared in timely season and in prodigious numbers. The most fashionable talents of the day contributed to them, and their publication was almost the chief literary event of the year. In The New Forget-Me-Not (Cobden-Sanderson, 6s.) the nineteenth-century Annual has been revived. Forty eminent hands have written articles on the leading events, social, sporting and artistic, which fill the English year. Among these contributors are Mr. Hugh Walpole, Mr. Robert Lynd, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, Mr. H. M. Tomlinson, Mr. Max Beerbohm and Mr. Edmund Blunden. The book is cheerfully and skilfully illustrated by Mr. Rex Whistler, and a calendar is provided with space for the engagements and incidents of each day.