22 OCTOBER 1927, Page 9

Mr. Thomas Marlowe—for thirty years editor of the Daily Mail—writes

to us as follows : "I do not think I can tell you what books have influenced my career. I have read many authors, but I cannot lay a responsibility upon the dead which the living would perhaps be unwilling to accept. The book I have read and re-read with the greatest pleasure during the past fifty years is Vanity Fair." Sir Frederick Lugard writes : "I much regret that I find it quite impossible to name three books. Shakespeare alone stands pre-eminent as an influence." Sir Frank Swettenham writes : "I doubt whether any book has influenced me greatly; but as books which have given me much, I should name : Homce's Odes, The Statesman (Sir Henry Taylor), The Martyrdom of Man."

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