6 FEBRUARY 1982, page 22

Helpless Health

P.J. Kavanagh Nightingale Fever Ronald Hingley (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £12.95) Y ou can begin to quarrel with Mr Hingley's account of four Russian poets (Akhmatova, Mandelstam,......

Thurber's Letters

Humphrey Carpenter Selected Letters of James Thurber ed. Helen Thurber and Edward Weeks (Hamish Hamilton £8.95) 6 T he effect of Thurber's letters on his 1 generation was about......