VIENNA, NEW AND OLD
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In your last issue you published an admirable review by Mr. Martin Cooper of a book that does not exist, but which, unfortunately, he attributed to me and called by the title of my recent book, Vienna : The Image of a Culture in Decline.
In this review I am charged with failing to write a " satis-
factory study of modern Vienna," when my whole and only concern, publicly stated, was to provide some picture of the Vienna that is past. No author in his senses expects the average reviewer to read his book from beginning to end, but he does, and not unreasonably, I think, hope that some attention may be paid to, say, the first three and the last three pages. The purpose of my book is placed beyond all doubt on pp. 2 and 3, where it is specifically stated to be " an attempt to evoke this dead or dying culture before it lies too far behind." Not to mention, of course, the whole tenor of the book.
Mr. Cooper was doubtless disappointed that my book was not " a study of modern Vienna " (though the sub-title should have warned him) ; but it is surely foolish, not to say dis- honest, to blame me for failing to carry out a scheme which was the opposite of my proclaimed intention.—Believe me,
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