27 ROSENAU ROAD
BATTERSEA PARK
S.W.11.

23. 10. 33.

Dear Sir,

I cannot with certainty make out your signature and therefore address you thus formally than risk misnaming you. I have only just received your catalogue, though I see that your letter was sent two months ago. You have probably not heard of changes and confusions in the Golden Cockerel, which may account for delay in forwarding.

The catalogue is one of the most stimulating I have come across, and book catalogues are among my favourite reading. I see that we have enthusiasms in common; more interesting to me, though, is the fact that there is not one of your expressed dislikes that I do not share: from piracy, through poets and parasites, down to the plain over-varnished husbands of genius.

One of the shortest and most enticing book reviews I know is also connected with Crowley. I cannot remember its source, but it was of Captain Fuller's book on A. C. "Star in the West", and ran: "There is something fishy about all this. I like it." The texture makes me suspect Crowley himself.

Though you have probably gone to press with your Fourth Section, I have put a few words together for you, in case they should be welcome and in time.

### Opinions of one writer for what, and they are worth.

When a new work of yours is issued as a Press Book, in a Limited or Fine Edition, there is neither hope nor fear, no element of speculation. The one frisson you get is when you first handle the garment of beauty - as it sometimes is - which has been hung upon the peg, you. The general run of reviewers, even, both spare you and deny you a kick, taking you for granted, as they do the Bible or Petronius, and concentrating on the bookmakers.

Ordinary Firsts are another matter.

I expect writers differ considerably as to which minute of time says to them: "What did I tell you ?"

Just as the high spot for me, the supreme kick my first play brought me, was not my acceptance, the contract, the first rehearsal, or first night, but the moment when, wandering alone on a deserted stage, I first saw the name of my piece chalked on the canvas backs of real scenery, so the acme of satisfaction I got out of my first book was not correcting the proofs, or opening the parcel, or reading the first review, but seeing its half-crown's worth, while the thing was still in print in other editions, listed at a pound. Surgit amari aliquid. Why that insane generosity with the free copies ?

L. Poong matter