If John Jay Chapman is remembered at all these days, it is as an eccentric who once thrust his left hand into a coal fire in penance for mistakenly beating up a friend. This is as if Vincent Van Gogh were to be remembered only for cutting off one of his ears.Chapman was, in fact a brilliant and passionate writer in many genres, an unrelenting foe of social injustice,and a penetrating critic of American philstinism and materialism.The last anthology of Chapmans writings appeared in the late nineteen fifties , and was edited by Jacques Barzun, who has supplied a fine ,judicious introduction to the present collection.A welcome feature of the present volume is a selection of Chapmans unpublished letters--some of the finest everwritten. One of them includes one of the most brilliant and succinct analyses of Lincolns life and character that I have ever read. One can only hope that a Chapman revival will take place, and that someone will eventually get around to doiing similar anthologies for Sydney Smith or Albert Jay Nock.