

Their editors may expend great effort on the selection of the contents, but they don’t pay sufficient attention to the quintessential requirement: that it be easy for the reader to find what he is looking for. I for one am delighted to have at last a comprehensive and reliable anthology of Wilde’s memorable dicta, but it prompts me to say a few harsh words about an annoying failing which I’ve found in most books of this kind. Maine and Alvin Redman has compiled an anthology of The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde (John Day, $4.00). The House of Dutton has issued in one large volume the completest collection of Wilde’s writings published in this country to date - The Works of Oscar Wilde ($4.95) edited by G. Three publications commemorate the centenary of the birth of Oscar Wilde. The author’s telling documentation suggests that the social effects of the automobile are beginning to rival in sheer horror those of the Black Death in medieval times. Evans are those pertaining to the American’s pride, joy, and necessity - his automobile. Probably the most subversive facts and figures dispensed by Mr. Among them are the so-called “scientific evidence” in favor of telepathy and extrasensory perception famous sayings by famous people who didn’t say them cant notions about history, such as the currently fashionable cliché that the Middle Ages was the Age of Faith (Evans has no trouble showing that irreligion, anticlericalism, and manifold heresies were rife) homely fallacies about matters such as mothballs and mousetraps popular misconceptions about poisons, drug addiction, aphrodisiacs the folklore of pregnancy, crime, the law, youth, and old age.

His current assault on legend, unreason, cockeyed gullibility, and wishful thinking singles out a wondrous diversity of targets.
