Janus is my name and mildness is my nature. It
is therefore with grief for human depravity rather than anger at it that I touch again on a subject I have mentioned here before. General Eisenhower's book was published on this side on January 3rd, last Monday, and all papers, when they received their advance copies, were charged in the usual way to publish no notice before the agreed day. January 3rd was a Monday, and it is generally understood that when books are published on a Monday the Sunday papers are free to review them on the previous day. No objection therefore could be taken to the reviews which appeared in journals like The Sunday Times and The Observer. But when reviews were printed in Time and Tide published on December 31st, and in The Economist dated January 1st, papers which, like The Spectator, observed the understanding regarding date are put at an unjustified disadvantage. I don't suppose, of course, that it was really depravity. There was no doubt a misunderstanding somewhere. But one detail does perplex me. Christopher Buckley, who reviewed the book in the Daily Telegraph on the right day, January 3rd, had already reviewed it in Time and Tide on the wrong day, December 31st, and actually began his review in the latter journal with the words "Now that General Eisenhower's book has been published in this country "- which in fact it hadn't.
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