C.A. Lejeune was among the first professional film critics in the world, her columns in the Observer commanding a huge readership. Her career spanned the rise, the great days and the beginning of the decline of the industry, and the start of the television age. She saw the coming of sound and color, of the star system and the wide screen. Her column was eagerly read for its percipience, humor, kindliness and good writing, by people who never went to the cinema at all.

This comprehensive selection of her articles, essays and reviews, from silent film days through to the 1960s, has an autobiographical shape. She tells how she became a critic and what criticism means; she recalls her long acquaintance with Alfred Hitchcock and Alexander Korda, Leslie Howard and Robert Donat, personalities - unforgettable and unforgotten - who gave British cinema its finest hours.

For students of film history, this is essential reading. For lovers of old films, it is an instructive and nostalgic delight. And, like C.A. Lejeune's column, it will appeal to any reader who appreciates good writing and civilized values.