1 MARCH 1957, Page 16

LESLIE STEPHEN'S ESSAYS SIR,—In his review of Men, Boas and

Mountains, essays by Leslie Stephen, Mr. John Bayley seems rather disappointed that the volume does not con- tain Stephen's 'best work,' though he concedes that 'it is a good representative batch. By 'best' I assume that he is thinking of the essays from which he quotes and upon which he bases most of his review. Had he read my introduction, he might have dis- covered why (with one exception) these are missing: the volume consists entirely of essays that have never been available in book form. Moreover, most of them were selected, not, because they are 'repre- , sentativc,' but because they illustrate characteristics of Stephen's work that have usually been overlooked. I regret that your readers have been given so misleading a description of the book.—Yours faith- fully,

S. 0. A. ULLMAN Department of English, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 14, Minnesota [John Bayley writes: 'I apologise to Mr. Ullman if I. appeared to overlook the critical method of his selection. A selection of Stephen's essays seemed to me to call for some general .remarks on Stephen, which were what I had in mind to give.'—Editor, Spectator.]