24 JANUARY 1987, page 32

I Love The Laurel Green

(after Etienne Jodelle) I love the laurel green, whose verdant flame Burns its bright victory on the winter day, Calls to eternity its happy name And neither death nor time......

Stalin's Favourite Novelist

Miranda Seymour DAN YACK by Blaise Cendrars, translated by Nina Rootes Peter Owen, £10.95 L urid, controversial, savagely funny, Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961) was one of the most......

A Do-gooder Who Did Good

Frances Partridge FURTHER PARTICULARS: CONSEQUENCES OF AN EDWARDIAN BOYHOOD by C. H. Rolph OUP, £12.50 A nyone who read the New Statesman in its heyday will remember seeing,......