" I LIKED THE LIFE I LIVED"
Sias,—In your issue of August 29th, the anonymous reviewer of my book I Liked the Life I Lived expresses the opinion that I seem unresponsive to literary values and considers that as I published the novels of Charles Garvice it might have been a " handicap." Also, he states that I issued With the Prussians in Peace and War and Memories of the Months, and from this deduces, with the obvious inference, that I was fond of publishing the works of titled people. In addition, he concludes that I must have kept a careful diary, for many of my reminiscences record the names of fellow-guests at dinner-parties and country houses.
In reply, I have to inform your reviewer that I did not issue any of the works of Charles Garvice, never published With the Prussians in Peace and War, nor Sir Herbert Maxwell's Memories of the Months ; nor have I ever kept a diary of any kind. I have no knowledge of your reviewer's criterion of literary values, but as I published several of Rudyard Kipling's stories, including some of the Puck of Pook's Hill tales, before they were issued in volume-form ; boqks by Joseph Conrad, Cunninghame Graham and W. H. Hudson ; editions of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson and Jane Austen (the latter with introductions by John Bailey), and also library-reprints of copyright novels by Thomas Hardy, Conan Doyle, George Gissing, Anthony Hope, Rider Haggard, Seton Merriman, H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett, Robert Hichens, A. E. W. Mason, W. W. Jacobs, H. A. Vachell, W. B. Maxwell, Edith Wharton, Mary Cholmondeley and many other famous authors, perhaps I was not, during my time as a publisher, so unresponsive to good work as your reviewer seeks to infer. Further, I am amused at your reviewer's comment on my interview with Henry James, for he seems unable to appreciate that many of us can tell a joke against ourselves and yet be conscious of the fact —Yours faithfully,
EVELEIGH NASH. Travellers' Club, Pall Mall, S.W. i.
[Our reviewer writes: " I am sorry. On a second reading I find that Mr. Nash arranged the publication of Charles Garvice's works and did not publish them himself, and I mistook a letter he wtote to The Times in praise of Sir Herbert Maxwell's book on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday for a publisher's tribute. With the Prussians in Peace and War should have read With the Russians in Peace and War—not a very important slip. An irresponsiveness to literary values is indicated in Mr. Nash's letter with its magnificently assorted list, and the real humour of the Henry James anecdote seems lost to him: that a literary adviser (later to distinguish himself as the discoverer of Charles Garvice and the publisher of The Sheik) should have the audacity to suggest to James what kind of a novel he .was to write."]
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