BOOKS: Books, Nov. 16, 1936

Literary Free-for-All

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF G. K. CHESTERTON—G. K. Chesterton—Sheed & Ward ($3).

SWINNERTON : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY—Frank Swinnerton — Doubleday, Doran ($2.75).

ACROSS SPOON RIVER—Edgar Lee Masters—Farrar & Rinehart ($3.50).

Although the portraits of eminent men of letters usually show features as battered as those of heavyweight prizefighters, the legend persists that the literary life is genteel, academic, serene. Last week three survivors of many a literary free-for-all contradicted the legend with their autobiographies, offering three pictures of those ceaseless struggles that revolve around books and that are fought with the weapons of reviews,...