Books: The Editors Like

THE CAPE HORN BREEDby William H. S. Jones. (Criterion, $5.00.) On his first voyage us apprentice in sail, Captain Jones struck a gale notorious even in the annals of Cape Horn. His story of this and other matters is a fine picture of the last days of the windjammers.

AZALAIby John Skolle. (Harper, $4.00.) The author joined a salt caravan and suffered over a considerable stretch of North Africa. A precise, quietly formidable account of trade and travel from another age.

THE SEARCH FOR CAPTAIN SLOCUMby Walter Magnes Teller. (Scribner, $3.95.) Captain Slocum sailed around the world singlehanded, and wrote about it. An amazing man who deserves a biography. Mr. Teller writes briskly and well, but he is a bit too awed by the captain to get a firm grip on him.

WINTER QUARTERSby Alfred Duggan. (CowardMcCann, $3.75.) War and religion in the Roman Republic, described by a Gaulish gentleman-mercenary whose views of Roman gods, tactics, and manners are a series of delectable surprises.

THE MARBLE ORCHARDby Margaret Boylen. (Random House, $3.50.) Dream and myth fuse to make a most interesting symbolic novel, which has great style and small truck with everyday probability.

DEATH OF A FOOLby Ngaio Marsh. (Little, Brown, $3.50.) Firmly plotted, nicely bloody murder mystery, enlivened by thorny rural types, a mean English winter, and a piece of folk ritual (invented by Miss Marsh) of truly dazzling absurdity.

THE IDEA OF HISTORYby R. G. Collingwood. (Oxford, Galaxy Books, $1.75.) Reprint of a classic first published in 1946, a critical survey of historical writing from Herodotus to Toynbee. With little doubt, the finest treatise on historiography by an Englishman in this century, comparable to the writings on the subject of Croce and Ortega y Gasset.

HENRY CLIFFORD, V. C.: HIS LETTERS AND SKETCHKS FROM THE CRIMEA. (Dutton, $10.00.) Clifford was a vivid correspondent who reinforced his prose with water colors of considerable effect. An immense and valuable amount of information on the Crimean War turns up in these pages.

DIPLOMACY IN THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EASTby J. C. Hurewitz. (Van Nostrand, 2 vols., $15.25.) A systematic compilation and textual reproduction of over 200 documents covering commercial agreements, diplomatic treaties, military conventions, and petroleum concessions negotiated between the Great Powers and Middle Eastern countries from 1535 to 1950. Indispensable reference work for anyone interested in the background of the present crisis in this area.

ALPS AND ELEPHANTSby Sir Gavin de Beer. (Dutton, $2.75.) How Hannibal went over the Alps, an old puzzle solved convincingly with gingery wit and much learning lightly handled.