2 JUNE 1967, Page 28

One awful example

Sir: Before Mr Martin Seymour-Smith calls other people liars, he must get his facts right. In his extensive abuse (26 May) of our book Fifty Works of English Literature We Could Do Without, he specifically accuses Miss Brophy of attacking Lamb, Gray and Galsworthy. It happens that she wrote none of these pieces. Nor is it a 'claim' that we each wrote approximately a third of the book; it is a statement of the truth. The final sneer at Miss Brophy—for being a woman and writing at all—is dragged in from the obscure Nicholas Breton. Breton however, seems to have had Mr Seymour- Smith in mind when he crisply wrote: 'He is as deaf as a door.'