22 DECEMBER 1984, page 47

The Life Of Language

C. H. Sisson The Lamentation of the Dead The Noise Made by Poems Collected Poems 1955-1975 Peter Levi (Anvil Press, £2.95, £6.95/£3.95, £7.95) • T: an outsider, the procedures......

Dud Dukes

Brian Masters The Churchills of Blenheim David Green (Constable £12.95) T he Churchills are the only family in the land to have produced two saviours of the civilised world......