Enid Starkie
Sir: It was a pleasure to read Miss Kay Dick's sensitive and perceptive review of Enid Starkie's biography but she Makes one small factual mistake. Enid Startle put up her valiant fight against cancer for five, not for two, years. My Wife and I had known her for a long time and our admiration of her indontitable spirit, which enabled her to maintain work of fine scholarship in sInte of increasing physical and mental stress, deepened as these painful years went on. We used to give her each year a birthday party at our house near Oxford in which she took a neverending delight. It was some small return for the great gaiety and fun we had always enjoyed in her company. She took a charming and almost child-like pleasure in anniversaries. She became very fond of my wife and asked her to accept the dedication of her new book on Laforgue which, incredibly, she embarked upon in the last few months of her life. She was indeed a most admirable, as well as a most remarkable woman. But I don't believe Oxford ever really understood her.
Nicholas Davenport 'Hinton Manor, Hinton Waldrist, Berks.
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