5 JANUARY 1968, Page 23

Echo de Paris

Sir : Rayner Heppenstall complains in his review of David Tylden-Wright's Anatole France (29 December) that 'After all, there is not much point in referring an English reader to a French biblio- graphy.' If most studies on a French author are written in that language, must they be excluded as references from an English book on him?

As this reviewer apparently thinks he is unique in being able to read French, would ii not have been easier for the rest of us if his article had been prefaced in simple English? -

.Rayner Heppenstall also refers to Montesquiou as 'the original of Proust's Baron de Charlus.' He was not the original, but one of at least four people, according to George D. Painter, who went to make up that complicated character.