Grosart
Sir: There may not be a statue to the Revd Alexander B. Grosart, as P. J. Kavanagh remarks (Life and letters, 19 July), but I wrote an article about him 30 years ago when I was an undergraduate. It was published in the Bulletin of the New York Public Library in September 1956, 'A. B. Grosart: "A Prince of Editors" ' — as he was called by Electric Review in 1861. Mrs Humphrey Ward, however, with what a contemporary called 'the bumptiousness of the sciolist', declared that 'All the work he did will have to be done over again.' Sadly that was true: many of his editions have been superseded and others never will be because nobody wants to read the obscure authors that he put through his editorial mill — such as Richard Sibbes, a Caroline divine who wrote The Returning Backslid- er. But Grosart put us in his debt by producing the first modern unbowdlerised edition of John Donne and by rediscover- ing many other lesser poets. With over 30 volumes to his credit, he ought at least to be in the Guinness Book of Records.
I have sent Mr Kavanagh a copy of my article and am thinking of founding a Grosart fan club. There will now be at least two members. As Grosart often declared, he sought 'fit audience though few'.
John Delafons
34 Castlebar Road, London W5
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