Books: Defining Uncle Alfred

THE LITTLE MAGAZINE: A History and a Bibliography (440 pp.)—Frederick J. Hoffman, Charles Allen & Carolyn F. UI rich — Princeton University Press ($3.75).

They are the uncompromising writers. As they grow up, they go on looking at people and things as they did when they were children, with a certain ulterior fixity of attention. The nervous and jovial object in the living room is Uncle Alfred, yes; but they cannot let it go at that; neither can they stop trying to define other things they see and feel. They are the writers who...

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