5 SEPTEMBER 1931, Page 24

Current Literature

How " 0. Henry " saw his fellow citizens we know, to our great profit. It is interesting to see how his fellow citizens, Mr. Robert H. Davis and Mr. Arthur B. Maurice, saw him. The Caliph of Baghdad (Appleton, 12s. 6d.) is a curious, rather planless product, composed of alternate slabs of sentiment and anecdote. Some of the anecdotes are well worth reading, and the letters which are quoted show us the 0. Henry whom we know. The biographers, however, would have been wiser if they had not claimed for their subject such " stupendous importance " in literary history. He himself would have been the last to do so.