Beatrice and Sydney Webb are still alive, though failing. At least, that is the impression one gets from these five pamphlets, which mark the resurrection of the Victorian Fabian Society since 1980, after temporarily shaking off the mortal after coil.

Fabian socialism has not been without mockers in its home land and it has exported somewhat less vigorously than the blackberry and rabbit. The image problem it has patiently endured this past three-quarter century has largely concerned a certain smug quasi-religious righteousness and unwillingness to examine appealing socialist notions very stringently.