Book Review Editor of "The Times"

EDITOR of The New York Times BookReview is the newest literary title and distinction for Francis Brown '25, man of many distinctions in the writing field. It's a return to the fold for him, for although he has been a senior editor of Time Magazine for the last four years, in charge of the Latin American section, before that he had a scribe's desk in the Times office for a decade and a half.

The tremendous task of selecting the right books to review, from an average of thirty new books received by the Sunday Review every day, and the right reviewer to evaluate them demands certain obvious qualities which Francis Brown has. Literary background: besides having authored several historical biographies he has done considerable reviewing himself and was reader for the Macmillan Company from 1942 to 1945. Sense of news values and administrative ability: he has not only written and edited news for many years; he has also had a chance to organize material on the grand scale.

His first assignment when he joined the Times Company in 1930 was particularly appropriate for a former college history instructor (he served three years on the Dartmouth faculty) with a Ph.D. from Columbia and a talent for clarity and conciseness. This was the associate editorship of Current History, a Times subsidiary which he guided until it was sold in 1936. Switching to the Times Sunday staff, he was chief writer during the infancy of the Review of the Week until he became head of that section.

Assistant to the Sunday editor was Francis Brown's title when he left the Times in 1945 to take his place among the top editors of Time Magazine. He steered the news weekly's Latin American department with such expertness that the Chilean Government awarded him the order "Al Merito." For his work in the interest of continental unity and hemispheric defense, he was decorated along with five other U.S. journalists on Jan. 12, 1949.

FRANCIS BROWN '25 AT HIS EDITORIAL DESK