"READING, Writing and Remembering" is a charming reflection of the literary London, of two generations by one who has been very much a member of it. Autobiographical in form, it deals more with other people than the author's own life. And it is genial and pleasing and filled with the warmth of personalities, great and small. Throughout the author is delightful and humorous. He tells anecdotes and reprints satirical poems of his own and other writers from Punch; and yet he is able to interlard a great deal of sound criticism. With equal case he returns to his childhood and recaptures a naive delight in the verses of the Tailor sisters, two Victorian A. A. Milnes; or describes the sophisticated pleasures of making fun of his contemporaries.

From the time Mr. Lucas studied Latin under the poet A. E. Housman till the present, his life has been a series of literary friendships. And in his book he tells of swinburne with his anecdotes of his friend who poisoned a Miss Abercrombie because she had such thick ankles; and of Conrad with his unbelievable accent; of Alice Meynell and her children about her; and of those two powerful literary machines, Arnold Bennett and H. G. Wells.

Most delightful perhaps are the author's own contributions to the Globe and to Punch, his "Shilling Nonesence," and his literary recipes. Of the last the "Kippling Chutnee" might be quoted as an example: "This pickle has a pecular mordant quality which distinguishes it from all others. The chief ingredient is unwashed English, chopped, and broken, and bruised with a brazen instrument. Then work in chips and fragments of cynicism the seven cardinal sins, the 'Civil Service Regulations,' profanity, the Southern Cross, and genius. Spice with a Tipperary brogue."

Although "Reading, Writing and Remembering" may not have the brilliance and sparkle of Rothenstein's, "Men and Memories," it is gossipy and amusing, and from the beginning to the end entirely pleasing.