Recent Reprints
The Human Use of Human Beings, Norbert Weiner's study of 'cybernetics and society,' was originally published in 1950, and quickly became a work of almost scriptural influence in American intellectual society. In Britain it was reviewed with both respect and enthusiasm, but appears to have been much less widely read. An opportunity for those who have not read it to repair the omission, and in so doing to make contact with an important, profoundly humane and `unorthodox' strand of American thought, is now offered by Eyre and Spottiswoode in a revised edition published at 18s.
The combined Macmillan/O.U.P. edition of Tolstoy's War and Peace, first issued in 1942, is now again available at 21s. It provides the annotated translation of Louise and Aylmer Maude. If 1,352 pages are to be produced in a single volume, then this book probably offers as good a solution as could be found of a severe typographical problem. But it must be said that the thin paper permits a bad `show-through' of the print on the reverse, and even of the print on the following page. 1,352 pages of this blurred effect cannot but be tiring to the eyes. Charles Seltman's Greek Coins was originally published in 1933, and has long been unavailable. It is now reissued by Methuen at 50s. in a new and extensively revised edition, thus becoming, in the words of the publishers, 'the sole up-to-date book about Greek coins, not only in English, but in any language.' Another work of scholarship which has again been made available is Etienne Gilson's The Mystical Theology of Si. Bernard (Sheed and Ward, 12s. 6d.). Professor Gilson's book contains, as well as a direct study of St. Bernard's thought, an illuminating and authoritative disquisition upon the nature of courtly love.
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Two of the works of J. Middleton Murry have just been reissued by Cape's. Keats (21s.) is the latest version of the book originally published as Studies in Keats in 1930 and republished as The Mystery of Keats in 1949. 'The outstanding addition to this new edition,' the publishers state, 'is a full critical examination and refutation of the novel theories put forward by Mr. Robert Gittings in his John Keats: The Living Year, concerning the rela- tionship of Keats and Mrs. Isabella Jones, and her alleged inspira- tion of the "Bright Star" sonnet.' Shakespeare (18s.) is a reprint of the book first published in 1936.
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Dent's have added Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (both illustrated by Walter Hodges and both at 8s. 6d.) and Marryat's The Children of the New Forest (illustrated by Lionel Edwards, I Is. 6d.) to their series of The Children's Illustrated Classics. Although it is not as cheap as some other children's series, this series is worth paying for, being sturdily as well as charmingly produced, and handsomely printed in large type on a good white paper with wide margins.
NICHOLAS RAEBURN
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