THE STEEP PLACES"
Sta,—I would not presume for a moment to ask leave to discuss any opinion which one of your reviewers might pass upon a book of mine. But questions of fact are in a different category. When Sir Ernest Barker writes of my recent book, The Steep Places, that it is a "series of articles or essays . . . not welded into a consecutive argument," adding that "some parts of it originally appeared in American newspapers and magazines," he creates—I am sure quite unwittingly and inadvertently— an impression which does not correspond to these facts: Of twenty-one chapters making 207 pages, one short chapter of four pages and some half-dozen pages of one other chapter only have appeared previously else- where, the remaining 190 pages or thereabouts being so little a re-hash that they have involved me in three years of continuous work and research, however little the result may constitute—in Sir Ernest's view—a consecu- tive argument.
I only raise these points of fact because publishers assure me that to create the impression that a book is a mere 'reprint of matter that has already appeared is seriously to reduce the chance that the ideas it expresses, whatever their merits or demerits, will reach the public. One other point is affected by the facts. Sir Ernest says the book "seems to be obviously addressed to Americans." It was written for England, and has not yet appeared in America, though, as it deals so largely with Anglo- American co-operation, it will certainly be published there also.—Yours, NORMAN ANGELL. Northey Island, Essex.
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