ALL THIS AND HEAVEN, TOO

Out of the bare bones of the facts of a great-aunt's life, Rachel Field has created a colorful, pulsing drama of character and history, spanning two continents, and the greater part of the past century. She has told it as fiction, but as one reads, knowing that the main facts are true, one feels that so it must have happened, thus the situations must have arisen, in such a way the characters would have spoken. The Praslin soandal was history. Henriette Desportes was the governess in the case. And later she married young Henry Field, and brought an exotic flavor into the staid congregation over which he presided in a New England village. The French half of the book is sheer enchantment. The early years in the parsonage are unique. There is pathos, and romance, and humor, and color and drama. Most of it is wholly credible. Occasionally, one feels that the author escapes from her subject into a desire to build the American background of history and literature, then suddenly she swings the reader back into the moving drama of her heroine's life, touching as it did many of the personalities and events of her times. This is the book that all who loved Time Out of Kind felt sure Rachel Field would write. The publishers are backing it as one of their big books. Go to it People will like it as they liked Enchanter's Nightshade. They will like it as they liked Java Head. They will like it for itself.