H. R. L

LUCE: HIS TIME, LIFE, AND FORTUNE by John Kobler. 296 pages. Doubleday. $4.95.

Published a year after Henry R. Luce's death, this volume is billed as his first biography. So it is, though scarcely a full-length treatment. An expansion of a 1965 article for the Saturday Evening Post, about half the book offers a biographical sketch of Luce, while the rest describes the rise and condition of the publications he founded. Author Kobler interviewed Luce and members of his family, talked to many of his associates, and had partial access to Time Inc. archives. Even so, students of the press are likely to find his analysis of the magazines and their policies superficial and patchy.

Most readers will probably find the personal passages more satisfying. The accounts of Luce's missionary family in China, the young boy's discovery of his homeland, and his brash yet innocent venture into the business of journalism nearly half a century ago--all these have the nostalgic air of an earlier America that ultimately shaped a very modern American. To describe the man and the editor, Author Kobler offers some intriguing snippets of H.R.L.'s memoranda to his staff, which convey something of his wide-ranging concerns for the world and his dialectical methods as a journalist. For the rest, Kobler relies heavily on scattered anecdotes. Most of these are presented with warmth and a measure of admiration for Luce's passionate curiosity, his moral earnestness, his kindness masked by gruffness. By the very nature of the anecdotal method, however, the result is often caricature rather than portrait--both in regard to Luce's person and his ideas.

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