Volume 15, Number 8 · November 5, 1970
Portrait with a Wart or Two
By W.H. Auden
Belloc: A Biographical Anthology
edited by Herbert van Thal
Knopf, 386 pp., $8.95
If one is interested in an author, one cannot help asking oneself: 'Suppose I had to make an anthology from his works, what would I select?' This means, of course, that one will be unfairly prejudiced against any selection which differs from one's own. In the case of a poet, though different readers may have different preferences, their principle of selection will, I think, be the same: they will try to select what, in their opinion, are his best poems, those, that is, which seem most likely to survive the test of time. Thus, I cannot imagine anyone, when making a selection from Wordsworth, including the sonnet 'Spade with which Wilkinson has tilled his lands,' on the grounds that, bad though it is, only Wordsworth could have written it.
Review, 1238 words
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