11 September 1982

My dear Eliot,

      I've been lying doggo lately (as, it is said, Lord Catto once did on a celebrated historical occasion) preparing for autumn lecture season - Romanticism in North Wales, Brahms in Nottingham, Schumann in London and - mirabile dictu! - Shakespeare in Birmingham. The last assignment is spinoff from a TLS piece on Edmund Ironside, with which is now also linked a book-construit for an edition of that same masterpiece with textual commentary and notes on the Shakespearean attribution. That led me to wonder whether you had given any further thought to an edition of EIII. I seem to recall you saying that one Proudfoot had some such project, which had an inhibiting influence. But if you should ever shake that Proudfoot off (or if some strong hand could hold that Proudfoot back) with a great cry of "this Eliot never did, nor never shall lie at the Proudfoot" etc I should have thought that my publishers might be interested: because people who'll publish Ironside will publish anything! (that's meant to be encouraging!)

       as ever Eric