“CIVILIZATION—ITS CAUSE AND CURE,” published by Edward Carpenter in 1889, at once attracted the attention of the English-speaking world. The promise of marked originality given by the title was fully honored in the book itself. It proved to be one of the strongest pleas ever made in English for Rousseau’s “return to nature” as a remedy for the evils of luxury and sensuousness. Its author was himself a convert, for it is said that he left the cities for “simple, yet artistic, farm life.” He was born at Brighton in 1844, and educated at Cambridge for the Church of England, in which he took orders and served for several years as a curate at St. Edwards, Cambridge. Retiring from the ministry, he became a University Extension lecturer and author. Among his works are “Towards Democracy,” 1883; “England’s Ideal,” 1887; and “Civilization—Its Cause and Cure,” 1889.