PERSONAL RECORDS

Reprinted from an English edition of 1961, this anthology of autobiography should please literary Anglophiles. The selections are confined to British writers no longer living and divided into seven categories. ""Early Years"" includes Thomas Trarue, Edmund Gosse (whose Father and Son pioneered the genre in 1907) and Thomas H, who died in 1809. ""Expanding Horizons"" gives us glimpses of Trollope, Herbert Spenner, with his ""tendency to absorption"", Leigh Hunt (""grateful for being made a acquainted with Homer and Ovid""), and a dozen others. The ""Self-Scrutinizers"" include Darwin, mourning in his old age his loss of taste for poetry and music, Beatrice Webb, and David Hume. Then come ""Women in Love"", with a delightful letter from lady Mary Plerrnt to her future husband, and Harriet Martineau telling why she is ""the happiest single woman in England"". ""Pastime and Good Company"", ""Afflicted and Distressed"", and ""Dedicated spirita"" offer a variety of typen ""who share a passion for regarding themselves in the mirrors of memory..."": Colley Cibber, Jane Carlyle (gone to live with her husband ""on a little estate of peat bog.""), George Fox, the rounder of the Society of Friends. Emphasis in the collection is upon humanidiosynerasy, and the juxtaponition renders sustained reading impossible. Potpourri for the bedside table.