.G. WELLS call it a novel, but bits of a
biography and an autobiography and an African explorer's account of his
travels have all somehow squeezed themselves into it, and for readers
whose birthdays began before the last quarter of the nineteenth century
_The Gay-Dombeys_ (CHATTO AND WINDUS) will best justify itself as a
_chronique scandaleuse_. To penetrate the thin disguises in which the
author has dressed his notabilities and to sort the composite or hybrid
personalities into their component parts should provide the initiated
with congenial if not very edifying occupation. The reader who is also
a DICKENS enthusiast will be, according to temperament, delighted or
outraged to find that Sir HARRY JOHNSTON has made his book as it were a
continuation of _Dombey and Son_. Many of his characters are either the
creations of Boz or their children and he contrives to carry on the
interweaving of their lives to an unbelievable extent--even when
the fullest allowance has been made for the smallness of the world.
_Florence Dombey_ and _Walter Gay_, as _Mr._ and _Mrs. Gay-Dombey_,
actually survive well into the present book, while Sir HARRY JOHNSTON'S
_Eustace Morven_, who tells us that he has reverted to the ancient
spelling of his name, is the son of _Harriet Carker_ and that hazel-eyed
bachelor, _Mr. Morfin_, who lived and loved in _Dombey and Son_. But
save in the chapter describing _Eustace Morven's_ appearance at the
annual dinner-party given by _Florence_ and _Walter_ to celebrate the
re-establishment of the firm, Sir HARRY JOHNSTON'S work has not a very
pronounced flavour of DICKENS. It is to be hoped that this method of
writing novels will not become popular. A series of sequels to everybody
by somebody else opens up an intimidating prospect, at least for the
reviewer.

* * * * *

Mr. PHILIP GIBBS has gathered together, under the title. _Open Warfare,
the Way to Victory_ (HEINEMANN), his despatches written from the Western
front during the last year of the War. What strikes one most on seeing
them again in book form is the obscurity in which they veil the events
they record. They so shine, as it were, with a luminous mist that they
seem to reveal everything, yet in sober truth very often it is only
in the light of later knowledge that they reveal anything at all.
Congratulations, therefore, to Mr. GIBBS, the perfect war correspondent!
I defy anyone from these papers alone (apart from the p