20 JANUARY 1956, Page 7

IN THE WORLD of English literature today, the worst thing

to be is an established writer. If you are dead and sufficiently obscure or once famous and now neglected,i you can look forward from the next world to a revival, However dull you were, there will be somebody to write a thesis on you. If you are alive and have never published a book before, you may be sure of praise, or at any rate recognition.. Your second book will be thought not so good as your first, This will be partly because the reviewer wishes to show that he has read your first book, or at least the reviews of it. If you persist in writing books after this, you will receive, at the most, inclusion in 'Books Received' or 'Other Books in Brief.' But I am told that reviews do not matter. Publishers' travellers are the people who sell books.