Books: Commentator

JOURNAL OF FORGOTTEN DAYS: 1934-35 (145 pp.)—Albert Jay Nock—Henry Regnery ($3.50).

Albert Jay Nock was a mysterious man. Not that he ever seemed to be one—the literary public knew him as an editor (the highbrowed, low circulation Freeman, 1921-24), an essayist of distinction, an authority on Rabelais, a biographer of Thomas Jefferson and Henry George. He wrote in an urbane, aloof style with an odd characteristic. At unpredictable points, caustic opinions on politics abruptly intruded, as if someone occasionally interrupted an hour of chamber music by reading well-written editorials from the Boston Evening...