“MALICE IN BLUNDERLAND.”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18018, 5 November 1920, Page 5

“MALICE IN BLUNDERLAND.”

MRS. ASQUITH’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. LITERARY SENSATION OF THE YEAR. Received Nov. 4, 11.10 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 4. The first volume of Mrs. Margot Asquith’s Autobiography has been published, for which the writer received £13,000. The book is the literary sensation of the year, despite the fact of long extracts having been previously published serially. Newspapers are publishing reviews running into many columns, generally protesting against the utterly false picture of London life and the lack of proper reticence in retailing lhe personal reminiscences of living notabilities. Nevertheless the extraordinary vanity of the author and the capacity of self-revelation make the book interesting reading. It includes accounts of numberless flirtations and piquant sketches of such men as Gladstone, Balfour, Rosebery, Jowett, Curzon, Tennyson, Morley, and her own husband. A number of denials of Mrs. Asquith’s statements have been already published, including one by Lady Gwendoline Cecil, who points out that her father, Lord Salisbury, had been dead ft year before the conversation which Margot describes in detail. Mr. Sidney Colvin flatly denies ugly allegations against R. L. Stevenson and his wife. Winston Churchill, who publishes a long review of the book, denies the accuracy of Mrs. Asquith’s picturesque account of the British Cabinet awaiting the declaration of war, Bitting smoking and saying nothing. "When the clock on the mantlepiece hammered out twelve we were at war.” Mr. Churchill points out that war commenced at 11 o’clock in the morning. The "Post” describes the book as "Malice in Blunderland.” The "Daily Chronicle” says it is a pot pourri of indiscretions.