24 MARCH 1967, page 20

The Strong Arm

CHRISTOPHER HIBBERT The emotive title of this book arouses both revulsion and nostalgia. The dispatch of gun- boats all over the late-nineteenth-century world as a means of......

Smell Of Hawthorn

-r PATRICK ANDERSON The chance smell of hawthorn in a middle- aged man's nose brings back, with stabbing clarity, le paradis des amours enfantins. The arrival of a new book on......

John Barleycorn By Jack London (arco 25s)

Clear, white light DAVID REES — He is the king of liars. He is the frankest truthsayer. He is the august companion with whom one walks with the gods. He is also in league with......