Arnold Bennett wrote thirty novels but has been somewhat neglected by modern critics. He was ahead of his time in appreciating Joyce, Lawrence, Faulkner and Hemingway. His work is characterized by social irony without bitterness, and satire without nastiness. As this novel suggests, perhaps he has more in common with E.M. Forster than has been realized.

Buffalo had a reputation for being the "last city in the East" in terms of social mores, and in its heyday supported clubs and societies that had much in common with those in New York and Philadelphia. Some of these still survive, such as the Consistory of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Its headquarters are now in Buffalo's suburbs, but its former building was originally a mansion of the Rand family and converted by the Masons in 1925 for Masonic use. In turn it was sold to the Jesuit Order in 1944 and renamed Berchman's Hall. It is now Canisius High School. Genealogists will welcome this...

The reader with a curiosity about the secrets of Freemasonry is confronted with a vast and eccentric literature, much of which is highly fanciful and often completely fictional. Finding books that have their feet on the ground, so to speak, is not easy. This is one, solid and truthful, and a good starting place for the curious who wonder about the world's most celebrated discrete society.

William Atherton Dupuy managed to combine a career in public service, playing a role in the Department of the Interior, with the writing of a number of books distinguished by the care he gave to selecting artists and orchestrating an unusually close connection between the illustrations and text. His observations on bird life remain both entertaining and insightful.

This controversial book has been a stalwart part of the reading lists of those attracted to naturism, which involved much more than simply taking off clothes and lying on a beach. The complex relationship that involves nudity with disciplines as disparate as yoga and environmentalism makes the subject perennially pertinent. Frances and Mason Merrill traveled widely and exhaustively to produce a survey of permanent usefulness.

William Atherton DuPuy was a well-known naturalist who wrote anecdotally and personally about nature in ANIMAL FRIENDS AND FOES, INSECT FRIENDS AND FOES, THE NATION'S FORESTS, and PLANT FRIENDS AND FOES. In another vein he authored GREEN KINGDOM, his account of the life of a forest ranger, and controversially produced HAWAII AND ITS RACE PROBLEM. He also wrote for Harper's and had a connection with the Department of the Interior and, less happily, with the military's chemical warfare projects.

Victor Lefebure (1891-1947) earned his bachelor's at University College London in 1911 and began a research and teaching career at Wye College before being called to the colors in the 3rd Essex Regiment in 1915. He was seconded to the Special Brigade of the Royal Engineers that was developing chemical warfare to be use against the Germans. He worked with the French forces and they carried out a number of successful attacks, notably at Nieuport on October 5, 1916. After the war he became a successful businessman and the inventor of a number of building materials. This book about chemical...