Mr. Gilbert Frankau is extraordinarily' good in catching the spirit of modern English life of the upper middle classes and his characterization just misses being brilliant. "Three Englishmen" (ifutchinson, London. 17/6) traces the married lives of three Englishmen from the last year of the 19th century to the present day. War and post-war England are in the picture and are handled with Mr. Frankau's confident experience. The novel is calculated to give pleasure to those who like a straightforward story Jabove the average, but it will disappoint those of Mr. Frankau's admirers who always expect him to write 3 really great book. Not that his work manship is defective—far_from it—Dut he seems somehow to fail to get up to the top rang of the ladder.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.