15 MARCH 1963, page 21

Literary Likings

THE authors of these two beaks are Americans. Wescott is the professional novelist writing about his colleagues, Van Doren the academic and amateur of letters. Neither of them......

The Skein

from the Chinese Moonlight through my gauze curtains Turns them to nets for snaring wild birds, Turns them into woven traps, into shrouds. The old, restless grief keeps me......

Books

Insane Pressures BY SARAH GAINHAM ' inva ded the survivors of the Irish famines could have 'invaded England in the 1850s, how would they have behaved to the people who had......