30 OCTOBER 1953, Page 28

THE latest volume of the Oxford Junior Encyclopaedia is entitled

Great Lives, and is a universal dictionary of biography addressed to younger readers. It is accurate and interesting ; and, except in a few particulars, perhaps as balanced as such a production could be. Thirty-five column inches for Napoleon ; thirty-three for Newton and thirty for Nelson ; sixteen for Shaw and fourteen for Shakespeare ; sixteen for Lloyd George and no mention of Baldwin or Neville Chamberlain. About right ? There will be different opinions. Perhaps an emphasis upon good works is proper : Shaftesbury' twenty inches ' • Florence Night- ingale twenty-four ; but fourteen inches of fulsome enthusiasm for George Cadbury struck at least one reader as excessive, much as his principal activity may endear him to the young.

N. P. R.