This book seems to have attracted a lot of adjectives. Beyond KARSAVINA’s ‘enchanting’ on the front cover, the flaps have ‘fascinating’ (three times), ‘exciting and vivid’, ‘enchanting’ again (once the full Karsavina quotation, and once from the News Chronicle), ‘delightfully impetuous’ and ‘irresistibly impetuous’ (the Observer and the Daily Mail respectively, agreeing on something for once), ‘beautiful’, ‘valuable’, ‘charming’, ‘enthralling’, ‘almost a great book’ (The Times, damning with faint praise, there; see also ‘in spite of its horrible title’ from The Spectator), ‘brilliant’, ‘remarkable’, ‘splendid’, and ‘unique’.
And, if that wasn’t enough, I am going to add ‘joyful’.
Kathleen Jowitt 