Found- a press cutting of an article from The Times in 1964 by 'Oliver Edwards'. This was a pseudonym for the editor Sir William J. Haley (1901-1987) where he indulged his love of books and book lore. He shared a name with the first rock and roll star Bill Haley but was 2 decades older than the great rocker. Many of his bibliophilic articles are preserved in Talking of Books, Heinemann, London 1957. This press cutting was found in a copy of W.N.P. Barbellion's Last Diary (Chatto, London 1920) and the first part deals with another of WNPB's books. Barbellion (another pseudonym) died tragically young but had some good things to say about death which are preserved at his Wikipedia entry. The article by Edwards/Haley is good on the subject of footnotes, but seems to come from an era way before the swinging sixties…Talking of Books
Book Markers by Oliver Edwards
How strangely persistent the instant is that makes one want to fill gaps on one's shelves. Often the missing volume does not matter. Any desire we ever had to ear it has gone. The want is not strong enough to provoke active search. One just keeps one's eyes open on the off chance. Year later one sees the title in some second-hand bookseller's catalogue. Very occasionally it has not already been sold.
So it was that I obtained from a Somerset bookshop recently - it is almost invariably in the country that these treasures turn up - a copy of W. N. P. Barbellion's 'Enjoying Life, and Other Literary Remains'. I was first drawn to Barbellion by H. G. Well's enthusiasm for 'The Journal of a Disappointed Man'. (It took some time to destroy the public suspicion that Wells himself at written it). I bought the 'Last Diary' when it came out. Later I knew his brother, A. J. Cummings, one of the best political journalists of his time. Barbellion was a pseudonym.
The D.N.B. puts him among the great diarists.
