OUT AND ABOUT • • By Archibald Marshall
We think; of Mr. Archibald_ Marshall as the novelist who pictures' the placid life of the country and the humourist who tells -" simple stories." But Out and About : Random Rennin. iscences (Murray, 10s. 6d.) is concerned with his experiences as a -journalist, which began at Cambridge on the Crania with R. C.Lehmann, continued on the Daily News with the same brilliant and popular chief, and then led to a long con. nexion with the Daily Mail under the late Lord Northcliffe, who had the good sense to employ Mr. Marshall as a special correspondent both at home and abroad. Incidentally the ' author describes at length Lord Northcliffe's courageous attempt to establish a weekly literary supplement to the Daily Mail, edited at first by Sir Edmund Gosse and then by Mr. Marshall. It was unprofitable for technical reasons but it liras most attractive while it lasted. Mr. Marshall's narrative is distinctly entertaining, for he has known many eminent people and has plenty of anecdotes to relate. But it may be. doubted. whether he has not said a great deal too much about one or two of his former friends who, he thinks, have in their own published reminiscences given a very wrong impression of episodes in which he and they were concerned, Mr. Marshall doubtless feels that the truth, as he sees it, should be stated, regardless of consequences. But such controversial matters seem out of place in an otherwise engaging book.
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