17 NOVEMBER 1979, page 26

Oakum Hokum

Jonathan Keates Dion Boucicault Richard Fawkes (Quartet 210.95) The 19th-century English theatre is never to be thought of without a shudder. Given the sheer, unredeemed......

Anglo-india

Benny Green Chronicles of the Raj Shamsul Islam (Macmillan £10) The title is rather misleading, for a chronicle is usually something very much more exhaustive than what we have......

Broad Canvas

Francis King £5.95) Confederates Thomas Keneally (Collins Although the greatest of all novels. War and Peace, is an historical one, in this century the genre has increasingly......