Alastair Forbes
What do they know of books who only Bookers know? Best by far of my 1982 bunch has been Byron, the 12 volumes of whose letters had a perfect postscript added to them by the matchless Leslie Marchand. A snip at £12.50 (John Murray). John Hope Mason's The Irresistible Diderot (Quartet) contains freshly translated ap- petisers to the extensive oeuvre of that darl- ing man, whom I should so dearly like to have met, and whose three volumes of let- ters to Sophie Volland can be read and re- read with as much pleasure as Byron's.
So much for the dead, now for the quick. And quickest of the lot is the Duchess of Devonshire whose first book, The House (Macmillan) is even better than her hus- band's racing epic Park Top and quite as good as her late sister Nancy Mitford at her tiptopmost. The early work of Paddy Leigh Fermor, himself a frequent Chatsworth guest has, to my great joy, been reprinted, again by John Murray and therefore miraculously free from misprints. The poetry of Sir Sacheverell Sitwell An Indian Summer (Macmillan) and Sir Charles Johnston, Choiseul and Talleyrand (Bodley e ascompanyThe Spectator 18 December 1912 Head) has given me as much pleasur their friendship and company over tw" score years. Shiela Grant Duff's Parting °I }fer. (Peter Owen) and Johnnie von warth's. Against Two Evils (0)1'7,, movingly reminded me, from different 91'4.4' of the hill, of the blockheaded British an jue French ignorance and cowardice that tnoWI' a Second World War as inevitable and necessary as the First. These cautionarY. tales have, pace Mrs Thatcher, InlilloSf whatsoever to do with the little fineLls, feckless Falklanders so depresswo:, described in nice Eddie Shackleton's tviseu wislands owon't, unlucky read isDavid s reports. Another message from rh°,,, P.M.Tthat Tinker, ksehroo, of the Come by the Exocet that hit ri"-j, (Junction Books). Glamorgan, A Message from the FalklatliP nbutintotf:g°1e:cigb ibou
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