31 OCTOBER 1952, Page 16

H. B.'s Cartoons

SIR,—Mr. Derek Hudson's interesting review in your last number seemed to me to do discriminating justice to John Doyle's art as cartoonist. I should like to add a word. Mr. Hudson thinks the idea of confining the cartoons chosen to the reign of William IV and so giving them a historical unity was a sound idea. I think so too. But the merit of that plan was not mine, for it came from the late Mr. Alan Bott of the Avalon Press. I had merely said that I wished to reproduce ,some of the- H.B. cartoons with historical notes. Mr. Bott took up the idea with enthusiasm, interested himself in my his- torical notes, about which he made valuable suggestions, and above all paid great personal attention to the difficult task of obtaining good reproductions of the cartoons; of • those technical processes I know nothing, but the result seemed to me very good. Mr. Bott died at

the prime of his 'powers only a few weeks ago, and his sudden death is a great loss to artistic and literary publishing. I had only known him for a few months, but I am deeply grieved both personally and

for public reasons.—Yours faithfully, G. M. TREVELYAN. 23 West Road, Cambridge.