Books the Editors Like

FICTION

St. Peter’s Day and Other TalesBY ANTON CHEKHOV

Early short stories, some never before translated into English, most of them wryly comic, all foreshadowing the masterly writer that Chekhov was to become. Translated by Frances H. Jones. PUTNAM, $2.50 and SI.25.

The RackBY A. E. ELLIS

A first novel of exceptional range and force, centering on the tragic, funny, intricate, circumscribed world of a tuberculosis sanatorium in Switzerland. ATLANTICLITTLE, BROWN, $4.50.

The Witching ShipBY FREDERIC MORTON

With a fresh and witty style, Mr. Morton describes the doings of wildly assorted ship’s passengers on a hectic wartime crossing of the Atlantic. RANDOM HOUSE, $3.95.

HISTORY

Pickett’s Charge BY GEORGE R. STEWART

Another view of the perennially fascinating Civil War, this one focused on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg. Detailed, based on a great variety of records and memoirs, clear, and admirably written, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, $5.00.

Braddock’s Defeat

Scholarly research has turned up some new material, eyewitness reports of the campaign that suggest that General Braddock, so long the colonial equivalent of Colonel Blimp, may not have been quite the unimaginative idiot that schoolbooks make him. Edited by Charles Hamilton. UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS, $3.95.

The Importance of Wearing Clothes BY LAWRENCE LANGNER

The director of the Theatre Guild propounds sartorial history and philosophy with humor, impertinence, and enthusiasm. Excellent pictures. HASTINGS HOUSE, $7.50.

OLD WINE

Roots of Contemporary American Architecture

A classic in its field, this anthology of essays on architecture, edited by Lewis Mumford,. has been revised and brought up to date and remains as impressive as ever, GROVE, $6.00.

The Memoirs of Lorenzo da Ponte

A very handsome reissue of the spirited memoirs of the Italian Jew who, in addition to being an amusingly inadvertent scalawag, wrote librettos for Mozart and became the first professor of Italian literature at Columbia. Translated by Elisabeth Abbott. ORION, $5.00.

The Real Robert Louis Stevenson and Other Critical Essays BY FRANCIS THOMPSON

Distinctive essays and comments by the author of “The Hound of Heaven,” retrieved from various periodicals of the 1890s, edited by Terence L. Connolly, S.J. UNIVERSITY PUBLISHERS, $10.50.