Books: Monarch Troubles

KING JOHN or JINGALO— Laurence Housman—Scribner ($2.50).

White-bearded, elegant Laurence Housman, 72, a younger brother of the late Great Poet A. E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad), holds the distinction of being England's most censored playwright. Beginning in 1902, when his Bethlehem was suppressed, he has seen 32 of his plays banned by English censorship, Victoria Regina among them. Like that play, his others have come under the censor's ban not because of any raciness or hurtful satire, but merely because of a technicality which prevents public performance of plays portraying his favorite subjects:...

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