II,FPIE5 Ira From: Angus Wilson, George A. Wheatley, A. Earley,
Peter Knight, John Buchanan, Peter I. Smith, Ruth Christine Price, A. C. Arthur,. Air-Commodore M. W. Palmer.- G. S. Taylor, 'Felon,' K. Treeby, G. S. Marr, John Tasker, Robert Hartman, Janine Hough.
Evelyn Waugh
srR,—since it was in the columns of the SPECTATOR that Evelyn Waugh wrote, in contradiction of your official critic, a long, perspicacious and generous letter about one of my novels at a time when 1 much needed encouragement, I should be glad if you would allow me to say how much I, as a new and junior novelist, owed to his encouragement. From the Moment that my first story appeared in Horizon he showed an interest, often highly critical, in what I produced; and this although our acquaintance was always of the very slightest and our political, social and religious views could hardly have been further apart.
I feel the need to state this publicly because most of the obituaries and appreciations of him that I have read, while recognising that he was the master of us all—and how could they not?—have, I feel sure, exaggerated his isolation from contemporary writing and his intransigence in face of its concerns. He suffered no follies or mistakes, as l knew to my cost when I allowed an interview with a Sunday paper to appear with an inaccurate statement about the lineage of Robert Clive; but he was the most modest critic if he thought books were of some aesthetic value. 'Have 1 got it right?' he wrote to me once when he had reviewed one of my novels. and when I suggested that he had only in part seen my intention, he replied with no concern other than an interest in our differing interpretations. Where novels were concerned he cared only, as I am sure others who were his juniors can confirm, that his criticism should assist and improve such original gifts as he could discover in new writers. Since adolescence 1 have looked forward to his new novels more than any other literary event: since middle age I have benefited by his criticism. I shall sorely miss both.
ANGUS WILSON
Felsham Woodside. Bradfield St George, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
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