BRITANNIA AND EVE

London, England

1 January 1952

(page 30)

BOOKS:

Reviewed by Trevor Allen.

“I read books,” said a friend of mine, “because I like to nose into other people’s lives.” A most unliterary pretext, yet it underlies the pleasure most of us have in reading biographies and autobiographies.

A strange world indeed, Arthur Calder-Marshall takes us into, reminiscing about boyhood and Oxford, for it had links with that “Beast 666 of the Apocalypse” Aleister Crowley, his “black magic” rites, and young men like Raoul Loveday who came under his sinister influence. “The Magic of My Youth” (Hart-Davis, 12s. 6d.) is written from “creative memory” or “remembering up,” which gives the author wide license and latitude; but presumably this lucidly written memoir is essentially true.