13 MAY 1978, Page 16

Critics of conflict

Sir: Your reviewer Mr Benny Green, writing about my book Henry Irving and the Victorian Theatre (with a kind foreword by John Gielgud), castigates me as 'solemn and implies that I was sentimental enough to make Irving into a plaster saint. C.P. Snow, reviewing the same book, described me as lough-minded' and 'entirely unsentimental'.

I am bemused. Perhaps I should take Irving's advice: 'I have determined not to see a paper for a week — I know they'll cut me up, and I don't like it!'

Madeleine Bingham 24 Abingdon Villas, London W8