PRESS GANG ! Edited by Leonard Russell
About a year ago Mr. Leonard Russell edited a book in which the works of fourteen eminent writers were most agreeably parodied. This successor to Parody Party (Hutchinson, 8s. 6d.) covers a, wider field ; it is intended to present a satirical picture of almost the whole of English life as it is reflected in the Press. Naturally not all the contri- butions are successful : Mr. Cyril Connolly's variety turn about a precious autobiography, for instance, produces with painful exactitude the impression of a work by Mr. Cyril Connolly—these forty pages are no more amusing than any forty pages out of The Rock Pool. But the greater part of the book is quite delightful. Miss Dilys Powell's Et Ego in Attica superbly reproduces the tones of Mr. J*m*s Ag*te's excursions into autobiography, Mr. Francis Iles, in Eastern Love-Song, brilliantly suggests the atmosphere of a prosecution for obscenity, Mr. J. B. Morton helps out The T*m*s in some important matters, and a dozen other contributors pull Fleet Street's leg with varying severity. This is in short a thoroughly enter- taining book ; if it does not seem quite so amusing as its predecessor, diet is perhaps only a sign that the modern novel is on the whole a better subject for malicious parody than the modern newspaper.
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