"TOWARDS UTOPIA."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SITICTAT011:1
Sir.,—An author has certainly no right to complain if a reviewer is not of his opinion ; but he has a very good ground for complaint if the reviewer will not allow him to be of his own opinion. I write, therefore, to protest against the pre- posterous caricature of a review which has been accorded to my book, "Towards Utopia," in the Spectator of October 13th. Your reviewer was at liberty to attack me, or to ignore me, but he was not at liberty to insert a notice that can give no one the least possible notion of the scope of my book. Had he even merely quoted the titles of my chapters, he would have acted far more fairly ; whereas he has picked out two of the moat trivial illustrations that I happened to employ en passant, has sneered at these, and so completed his "review." Surely authors have some rights, and may justly demand from reviewers" fair-play,—either a fair statement of the scope of the book, or silence. I trust to your sense of generosity and justice to insert this protest.—I am, Sir, &ea
"A FREE LANCE," Author of "Towards Utopia."
[As a Yule, we do not find " ignoring " any author does satisfy him even as well as a short criticism. Does our corre- spondent know how many thousands of books are poured forth every year ? In dealing with such books as "Towards Utopia," it is not easy to give a conception of the general drift without a great drain on our space. And trifles may be a better test of the discretion of the author than anything short of a full criticism.—En. Spectator.)
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