Spirit of understatement, possess us now! This book is worthy of its subject both in size and texture; and complete with bibliography and index, is a bit of ‘orl right ‘as Chesterton’s hansom cabby said when he had driven a long way up a blind alley. The 574 pages are packed well with matter of almost all possible variety and charm, and he who reads it through will want it by him to read in and out of. Labour of love it must have been, for the gifted authoress hints at thousands upon thousands of pages (even of Hansard) carefully perused and sifted, with thousands of letters either judiciously condensed or quoted at length. Indeed no pains have been spared to make it another Boswell, a super-Boswell let us say.

For Johnson’s world was smaller if more impressive than the world of Chesterton, and it did not press so close around him, nor didi Johnson re-act so vigorously or so ubiquitously to every breeze that blew from the great deep. Whether one came from the provinces with the hayseed in one’s hair, or took tea with Chesterton in darkest Yorkshire, one was at a loss for nearly half a day to guess what were biting the big man at the hour of contact. For he had informations from sources unknown, tips from horses’ mouths over and above the mystery of Fleet Street, tips which made him more alive to current events than the whole Press, which after all is but the opium of the people. This serious side of his life is well and truly set forth with growing emphasis throughout the body of the book, and his tragic interest in the Marconi matter is juridically dealt with by the author’s barrister husband, Frank Sheed.