1. 5 February 1966 (Maurice Brown's book on Schubert)

Dear Andrew,

   I sometimes reflect, with that amused indulgence which I seem to reserve mainly for thinking about myself, that I must be more trouble to you than all your other contributors put together. Why I should suppose that you find this tolerable I can't imagine. To make matters worse, I now have to ask your advice about the Brown Schubert (which certainly sounds more thick than clear, which is exactly my own view of it). I enclose, obviously not for submission for publication but for your help if I may have it, a first draft of a Brown review. I'd like your help if I may have it , because (a) any review would be my first, and I've been conditioned not to move a step without precedent or advice (b) Roger Fiske says that I'm not to say anything in the least unkind about Maurice Brown, for the excellent reason that he is an infinitely agreeable and well-meaning person (c) you hive some interest in the Brown book, having already espoused its cause (d) you will be able to judge which bits of the draft if any are acceptable and which are not.

   Perhaps this could be briefly part of the programme, say as an eyebrow-raiser, when we meet. If you think that the line I've taken won't do at all, then you may like to know that among even more noted Schubertians who are waiting to be sent this book for review, from one source or another, is your great friend and admirer Erik Smith, with whim I had a very agreeable lunch yesterday.

   yours ever

 

P.S. I should like to mention, as an earnest of my self-restraint, that I eventually decided against the inclusion of any suggestion to the effect that Mr. Brown's dust-jacket was there to protect not the book but the reader.