A History of Fire and Flame

Abstract

A PROBLEM that the alchemists found ex-tremely difficult to solve was the preparation of an amalgam of iron. Dr. Ellis has attempted an analogous task, namely, the fusion into a homogeneous unity of the cold and hard scientific facts of the history of fire with the aesthetic appeal of fire and flame to his poetical emotions. The result is a book sui generis, which will be variously estimated according to the point of view from which it is surveyed. It is scarcely within the province of the present reviewer, and still less within his capacity, to appraise its merits as a work of art, though Dr. Ellis's mellifluous prose and well-developed sense of style must afford pleasure even to the most Philistine of his readers. The book is, however, by no means easy to understand, partly because the author's fancy leads him to stray down every attractive by-path, and partly because his wealth of quotation and allusion is apt to prove bewildering to anyone less familiar than himself with the original literature. A History of Fire and Flame. By Oliver C. de C. Ellis. Published for the Poetry Lovers' Fellowship with the International Fellowship of Literature. Pp. xxiv + 440 + 20 plates. (London: Simp-kin Marshall, Ltd., 1932.) 15s. net.