W. C. FIELDS: His FOLLIES AND FORTUNES (340 pp.)Robert Lewis TaylorDoubleday ($3.50).
At the age of nine, William Claude Dukinfield conceived a passion for juggling. In the Philadelphia stable where the family vegetable cart was stored, he practiced earnestly with oranges and lemons. But the elder Dukinfield took a dark view of his son's ambition, and once he went as far as to tan him for bruising a lemon. Incensed beyond containment, William climbed aloft in the stable one day and dropped a large box on his father's head. Then he left home, never to return.
Thus began the career of...