A.L. Rowse
Best book of the year to me was Barbara Pym's autobiography, A Very Private Eye, a revelation of a remarkable, and remark- ably nice, woman. I was glad to find that she had had some sex in a not altogether satisfactory life. I had thought, mistakenly, that she had none — in that, like Jane Austen too!
Best literary biography was A.N. Wil- son's Hilaire Belloc, a difficult subject to get right. Belloc was a genius, but also what a fool, in so much that he thought. I always find it difficult to understand when clever people are also very silly. Proleta- rian common sense makes me very impa- tient with them. Wilson was much more patient with Belloc than I should have been, and did him justice.
I don't read bad books. But there was one I thought we could do without, an edition of Ranter Writings of the 17th century, for all that it was cracked up to be by a trendy professor of Eng. Lit. at Oxford. A pity to waste paper on such nonsense when many promising books find difficulty in getting published.
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