Hatchet job
Sir: It is unusual to watch a reviewer straining all his intellectual resources to damage the good name of his subject and
only succeeding in damaging his own. I have not read Marina Warner's Monu- ments and Maidens and have no idea of what it is about — thanks to A. N. Wilson's comical review (Books, 9 November).
Mr Wilson suggests that Miss Warner's scholarship is bogus and that she is a `charlatan'. To back this up he makes some disparaging remarks about her bibliogra- phy. Surely if the Spectator wishes to criticise an author's scholarship it would be well advised to employ a scholar to do it? After all who among us, seeking informa- tion on the merits of various editions of Dante and Boccaccio, would think of asking A. N. Wilson?
Having know Marina Warner for 25 years and A. N. Wilson for three or four I have no doubt which of them should properly be described as a charlatan. There are various tools useful for belittling the work of another writer. Your reviewer has chosen the hatchet and drawn a lot of blood, all of it his own.
Patrick Marnham
58a Netherwood Road, London W14
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