Book dossier

Verses from 1929 on

by Ogden Nash, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd

'Candy is dandy But liquor is quicker' This catch-line is Ogden Nash's suggestion for his own obituary, constituting 'an appropriate sentiment for a gravestone, and of about the right shape and size'. Proceeding in this strain of human frailty Ogden Nash tells his publisher that 'the verses in this volume, although no more immortal than their author, are at least my own'. This imposes too modest an estimate of posterity's judgment of one who in the opinion of The Times has proved him- self 'a most ingenious and amusing critic of human frailty and absurdity'. Now that Ogden Nash has attained such promin- ence in the affections of a large public on both sides of the Atlantic a collected edition of his works will be warmly welcomed, especially as the author has chosen the poems he would like to see survive himself. The selection has been made from the thousand or more which span the thirty years of his creative poetry. Ogden Nash tells us 'I have rewritten many, trying to make them shorter and sharper. I have retained a few which comment on events now forgotten, and mention names which have vanished from the headlines, but I think that their themes are clear enough and perhaps lasting enough to justify their inclusion. 'For the most part, however, I have been trying to comment on human beings and their relation- ship to one another; or, when momentarily frus- trated in this endless task, have sought solace in nonsense for nonsense' sake.' Wrapper design by Patricia Davey