The Americanization of John Lehmann

In My Own Time: Memoirs of a Literary Life by John Lehmann. Little, Brown and Company, $15.00.

In My Own Time is a stout and expensive condensation of the three volumes of autobiography originally published in England as The Whispering Gallery (1955), I Am My Brother (1960), and The Ample Proposition (1966). In the foreword to the American version, Lehmann declares: “In My Own Time brings the three together in a single volume for the first time, occasionally revised and with many passages omitted, but with the essential elements of the story left intact. The revisions in the text were made with the sole intention of providing the reader with a continuous and coherent narrative.” The first part of this statement is, strictly speaking, correct, but the reader may be tempted to suppose that the excisions have been less than severe. In fact, the American version is only about half the length of the English version—558 pages as against 948. Of the intention which lies behind the abridgment it is no doubt necessary (as well as polite) to take Mr. Lehmann at his word. I do. But, as I shall demonstrate, a number of the discarded passages contain materials of considerable interest and value.