4 DECEMBER 1976, page 24

The Roar Of The Grease Paint

Peter Conrad On With the Show!: The First Century of Show Business in America Robert C. Toll (Oxford University Press £12.50) The Rise of Romantic Opera Edward J. Dent Edited by......

Uncertain Feelings

Peter Ackroyd The New Oxford Book of American Verse Edited by Richard Ellmann (Oxford University Press £7.50) The best anthologies are immodest, partisan and grossly unfair. It......