17 MAY 1968, Page 30

Waiting for Adolf

Sir: During more than thirty years as a librarian I have frequently wondered how some books have come to be written, let alone pub- lished. Michael Calvert's letter about his book Fighting Mad (3 May) at last makes all clear.

The recipe for success as a writer is appar- ently simple: dictate your first draft, allow your agent and some helper to knock it into shape, further permit a newspaper to decorate it in tabloid style, add a dash of casual mis- information and finally be ill when the proofs of your mutilated masterpiece arrive.

Mr Calvert's revelations of the secrets of `authorship' cast a new light on many hundreds of shoddily-tailored books that might have been stillborn had they merely been written in the ordinary way.