That local history may be made entertaining as well as
instructive, if handled in the right way and with sufficient knowledge and skill, is definitely proved by Mr. Reginald L. Hine in the excellent History of Hitchin, which is now com- pleted in a second volume (G. Allen and Unwin, 16s.). Mr. Hine's method is to give accurate detail in abundance and to illustrate the text profusely with portraits, views, cari- catures and maps bearing on the subject. He succeeds so well that his book not merely gives the history of Hitchin, but throws much light on the social history of England. The new volume contains three valuable chapters on the
Baptists—Bunyan, of course, notable among them—the Congregationalists and the Quakers. Next comes an amusing chapter on sports and pastimes, with another on crime and punishment. Place-names and surnames are handled with are, and the volume ends with a witty essay on the value of local history, a chronology and a formidable list of sources.
The illustrations are very numerous and very good. Hitchin should be proud of its historian.
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